A machine protection beam position monitor system

Loss of the stored beam in an uncontrolled manner can cause damage to the PEP-II B Factory. We describe here a device which detects large beam position excursions or unexpected beam loss and triggers the beam abort system to extract the stored beam safely. The bad-orbit abort trigger beam position monitor (BOAT BPM) generates a trigger when the beam orbit is far off the center (>20 mm), or rapid beam current loss (dI/dT) is detected. The BOAT BPM averages the input signal over one turn (136 kHz). AM demodulation is used to convert input signals at 476 MHz to baseband voltages. The detected signal goes to a filter section for suppression of the revolution frequency, then on to amplifiers, dividers, and comparators for position and current measurements and triggering. The derived current signal goes to a special filter, designed to perform dI/dT monitoring at fast, medium, and slow current loss rates. The BOAT BPM prototype test results confirm the design concepts.