Real-time Artificial Intelligence for Accelerator Control: A Study at the Fermilab Booster

We describe a method for precisely regulating the gradient magnet power supply at the Fermilab Booster accelerator complex using a neural network trained via reinforcement learning. We demonstrate preliminary results by training a surrogate machine-learning model on real accelerator data to emulate the Booster environment, and using this surrogate model in turn to train the neural network for its regulation task. We additionally show how the neural networks to be deployed for control purposes may be compiled to execute on field-programmable gate arrays. This capability is important for operational stability in complicated environments such as an accelerator facility.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures. Submitted to Physical Review Accelerators and Beams. For associated dataset and data sheet see http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.408898

Pulsed magnetic field measurement using a ferrite waveguide in a phase bridge circuit

There are several standard methods used for measuring pulsed magnetic fields. However the induction or Hall probe methods have limited bandwidth and experience reflection problems. The integrated magnetic field can only be found by measuring along the entire length of the magnet. Problems with reflections, noise and bandwidth will limit the accuracy of measurement. Presented in the following paper is a method for measuring pulsed fields without the typical noise errors and bandwidth limitations. This paper will describe a phase bridge network that relies upon the permeability of a ferrite waveguide to accurately measure the integrated field of a Main Injector kicker magnet. The authors present some data taken with the system, a first pass at the analysis of this data, and discuss some possible design variations

RF cogging in the FNAL Booster Accelerator

The Fermilab Booster operates at a Radio Frequency (RF) harmonic number of 84 with beam in all buckets. One or two bunches of beam are systematically lost in the 8 GeV extraction process as beam is swept across a magnetic septum during the extraction kicker rise time. The prompt radiation and component activation resulting from this localized high energy beam loss become serious concerns as Booster beam throughput must be increased more than tenfold to meet the requirements of RUN II, NUMI, and MiniBooNE experiments. Synchronizing a gap in the beam to the firing of the extraction kickers, a relatively easy and standard practice in many machines, can eliminate the problem. This seemingly simple operation is greatly complicated in the Booster by the need to synchronize extraction to beam already circulating in the Main Injector. Coupled with the inflexibility of the Booster resonant magnetic cycle, cycle to cycle variations, and constraints inherent in the accelerator physics, that requirement forces active control of the gap's azimuthal position throughout the acceleration process as the revolution frequency sweeps rapidly. Until recently, the complexities of actually implementing and demonstrating this process in the Booster had not been worked out. This paper describes a successful demonstration of gap cogging in the Booster

Booster's coupled bunch damper upgrade

A new narrowband active damping system for longitudinal coupled bunch (CB) modes in the Fermilab Booster has recently been installed and tested. In the past, the Booster active damper system consisted of four independent front-ends. The summed output was distributed to the 18, h=84 RF accelerating cavities via the RF fan-out system. There were several problems using the normal fan-out system to deliver the longitudinal feedback RF. The high power RF amplifiers normally operate from 37 MHz to 53 MHz whereas the dampers operate around 83MHz. Daily variations in the tuning of the RF stations created tuning problems for the longitudinal damper system. The solution was to build a dedicated narrowband, Q {approx} 10, 83MHz cavity powered with a new 3.5kW solid-state amplifier. The cavity was installed in June 2002 and testing of the amplifier and damper front-end began in August 2002. A significant improvement has been made in both operational stability and high intensity beam damping. At present there are five CB modes being damped and a sixth mode module is being built. The new damper hardware is described and data showing the suppression of the coupled-bunch motion at high intensity is presented