Longitudinal feedback system at SRRC

We present details of the design for the CCD readout electronics for the Subaru Telescope Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS). The spectrograph is comprised of four identical spectrograph modules, each collecting roughly 600 spectra. The spectrograph modules provide simultaneous wavelength coverage over the entire band from 380 nm to 1260 nm through the use of three separate optical channels: blue, red, and near infrared (NIR). A camera in each channel images the multi-object spectra onto a 4k x 4k, 15 um pixel, detector format. The two visible cameras use a pair of Hamamatsu 2k x 4k CCDs with readout provided by custom electronics, while the NIR camera uses a single Teledyne HgCdTe 4k x 4k detector and ASIC Sidecar to read the device. The CCD readout system is a custom design comprised of three electrical subsystems: the Back End Electronics (BEE), the Front End Electronics (FEE), and a Pre-amplifier. The BEE is an off-the-shelf PC104 computer, with an auxiliary Xilinx FPGA module. The computer serves as the main interface to the Subaru messaging hub and controls other peripheral devices associated with the camera, while the FPGA is used to generate the necessary clocks and transfer image data from the CCDs. The FEE board sets clock biases, substrate bias, and CDS offsets. It also monitors bias voltages, offset voltages, power rail voltage, substrate voltage and CCD temperature. The board translates LVDS clock signals to biased clocks and returns digitized analog data via LVDS. Monitoring and control messages are sent from the BEE to the FEE using a standard serial interface. The Pre-amplifier board resides behind the detectors and acts as an interface to the two Hamamatsu CCDs. The Pre-amplifier passes clocks and biases to the CCDs, and analog CCD data is buffered and amplified prior to being returned to the FEE.

The ATLAS tile calorimeter ROD injector and multiplexer board

With the advent of radioactive beams there is a quest for developing novel experimental methods and instruments able to cope with beam characteristics to extract spectroscopic information and to study novel nuclear reaction mechanisms. The tendency is towards Digital Pulse Shape Acquisition since it allows one to fully profit of the information encoded in the detector output response. Even if the convenience of driving the signals over differential pairs to preserve signal integrity in noise environment when long cables are used is evident, there is a lack of digitizing electronics that features a differential input. To this aim we designed, build and qualified an antialiasing module that provides 256 channel antialiasing filter with selectable parameters and differential input to be coupled with the GET – Generic Electronic System for TPCs - backend electronics. The contribution focuses on the board design, layout and performance measured both as a standalone circuit and during on-beam experiments.

We have developed the back-end readout electronics (BEE) for Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC). HSC is the next generation wide-field camera to be mounted on the 8.2-meter diameter Subaru Telescope in Hawaii. It employs 116 pieces of 2k × 4k Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs) to cover a 1.5 degrees diameter field of view. The electronics system for HSC can be divided into two parts: the front-end electronics (FEE) in which analog signals from CCDs are processed and the BEE which is a digital component of the readout electronics. The BEE sends a readout clock to the CCD and FEE, receives the image data from the FEE and sends them to the data acquisition computers. The electronics are required to read the CCDs at the rate of 243k pixel/sec/CCDoutput while suppressing the readout noise smaller than about 4 electrons, so that the 2.3G byte of an image data can be read within about 10 seconds. We designed the BEE as 3U Euro-card system with seven slots (140 mm × 180 mm × 130 mm) to achieve all the requirements for HSC. The maximum readout speed was 265k pixel/sec/CCDoutput and the readout noise was smaller than 3 electrons, including the clock jitter noise of 0.1 electrons. We concluded that our back-end readout electronics have sufficient performance for HSC.

Tohoku University, Miyagi, Japan The silicon-strip vertex detector in the Belle II experiment is one of essential detectors to search for physics beyond the Standard Model. To read out all 223,744 readout strips of the double-sided silicon strip detectors in high beam background, 1748 APV25 chips are employed for the frontend electronics. Hence, flash analog-to-digital conversion with high-density inputs is required on the back-end electronics. We developed prototypes of the back-end electronics and successfully performed a full integration test at the DESY electron beam line. In this paper, we report on the development of the prototypes and results from the beam test. Technology and Instrumentation in Particle Physics 2014, 2-6 June, 2014 Amsterdam, the Netherlands

For the storage rings, there are always large numbers bunches and beam current in them, due to the resistive wall impedance and high order modes, strong beam instability will occur and cause beam current limit and beam loss. There are many methods to relieve this phenomenon. But the beam feedback system is almost the most effective way to suppress beam instability and large oscillations caused by beam injection among these methods. Therefore, it is an important guarantee for improving beam quality. This article will introduce the historical development and current status of the transverse beam feedback systems all over the world, the details of every part of transverse feedback system, such as signal detection unit, front-end electronics unit, signal processing electronics unit, and so on, and its recent new technologies and advances.

The article describes an approach to ensuring stability and controllability of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with unknown aerodynamic characteristics by computer simulation of the airplane flight along a given route in the meteorological standard atmosphere. This computer model takes into account the programmed flight of an unmanned aerial vehicle in the meteorological atmosphere along a given route with waypoints. For this purpose the model incorporates 5 feedback systems (FS) with autopilot (AP) that ensure the stability and controllability of an airplane. Besides the autopilot and the airplane glider the control system encompasses the Kalman filter and a strapdown inertial navigation system. The appropriate structure and parameters of the control system of the model were chosen on the basis of practical technical solutions of the de veloped UAVs. The closed control systems of the model are developed according to the equations considering generation of aerodynamic forces and moments, a model of the standard atmosphere, the routing scheme and the feedback system with autopilot. The stability and controllability of the model were analyzed according to the theory of feedback systems with the graphic plotting of Bode magnitude plot and Bode phase plot. With a view to the assessment of dynamic and fluctuation errors of the control systems the model is represented by stochastic differential control system with the Kalman filter and the strapdown inertial navigation system in quaternions. The results of the computer simulation showed that the Kalman filter estimates the measured parameters with the noise reduction under 10 dB. The strapdown inertial navigation system influences the general dynamics of the control system during the assessment of its stability and controllability. Changing the band of the control system at the expense of external perturbations affecting the plane can lead to instability, and in order to avoid it the robust autopilot is recommended.

Most planetary missions contain instruments capable of recording radio emissions. The antenna is one such useful tool to detect electric field of radio emissions. Characterising the antenna is essential to better understand the signals observed and also to design front end and back end electronics. In this work, we analyse different Vee antenna configurations and present an empirical formula of induced voltage across antenna terminal for each case. A comparison of their suitability for space application is also presented.

The WFM (Wide Field Monitor) instrument of eXTP (Enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry Mission) covers a large fraction of the sky in the (2 - 50) keV energy range, with good angular (5 arcmin - FWHM) and energy (better than 500 eV - FWHM at 6 keV) resolutions. The WFM instrument is part of the scientific payload of the eXTP X-ray satellite, together with the Spectroscopic Focusing Array (SFA), the Large Area Detector (LAD) and the Polarimetry Focusing Array (PFA) instruments. The WFM is distributed in three camera pairs with a broad field of view (180° × 90° FWZR). Each camera is composed by a coded mask assembly, a collimator, a DSP (detector support plate) which hosts four DAs (Detector Assemblies) - each DA including an SDD (Silicon Drift Detector) and its corresponding FEE (Front-End Electronics) - and one BEE (Back-End Electronics). The coded mask area is 260 × 260 mm. It is manufactured from 150 μm thick Tungsten foil. The mask shall keep a flatness of ±50 μm over its surface for the whole operating temperature range of the WFM instrument. A pretension mechanism is carried out with a set of mask frames to fulfil this requirement. A collimator structure supports the coded mask assembly and the detector box. The collimator will provide the stiffness required to avoid deformations due to accelerations and thermal stresses. In this paper, we present the mechanical design drivers of the camera structure (i.e. coded mask assembly, collimator and DSP), the alignment procedure of the detector plane (i.e. the four Silicon tiles) and the detector plane with the coded mask and the camera thermal control system.

The ELT primary mirror is a 39m diameter concave mirror composed of 798 mirror segments. Each mirror segment is equipped with edge sensors, position actuators and a surface deformation warping harness, independently controlled by their backend electronics. The controllers are mounted in cabinets grouping up to seven segments. Each cabinet contains a network switch and a PLC for power control, telemetry and auxiliary tasks. There are in total 132 cabinets, named segment concentrators, grouped in six sectors. This constitutes a system of more than 2600 networked endpoints, including micro controllers, PLCs and network switches, to be controlled and supervised. The M1 Local Control System (LCS) is the subsystem of the ELT responsible for the monitoring and control of M1 segments. Its main goal is to enable the phasing of the M1 mirror to compensate for the presence of disturbances such as changing gravity vector, thermal expansion and wind forces. M1 LCS will provide a reliable and deterministic infrastructure to collect edge sensor and position actuators measurements and to distribute new position references at a frequency of 500 Hz. In addition, the software is responsible for devices synchronization, monitoring, configuration management as well as failure detection, isolation and notification. The M1 LCS passed its final design review and the development commenced. The present paper summarizes the M1 LCS software design, including adopted patterns and technologies, and the current development status.

The ASTRI Camera control software of the ASTRI SST-2M prototype for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The readout of large pixellated detectors with good spectroscopic quality represents a challenge for both front-end and back-end electronics. The TRISTAN project for the search of the Sterile neutrino in the keV-scale, envisions the operation of 21 detection modules equipped with a monolithic array of 166 SDDs each, for β-decay spectroscopy in the KATRIN experiment's spectrometer. Since the trace of the sterile neutrino existence would manifest as a kink of < 1ppm in the continuous spectrum, high accuracy in the acquisition is required. Within this framework, we present the design of a multichannel scalable analog processing and DAQ system named Kerberos, aimed to provide a simple and low-cost multichannel readout option in the early phase of the TRISTAN detector development. It is based on three 16-channel integrated programmable analog pulse processors (SFERA ASICs), high linearity ADCs, and an FPGA. The platform is able to acquire data from up to 48 pixels in parallel, providing also different readout and multiplexing strategies. The use of an analog ASIC-based solution instead of a Digital Pulse Processor, represents a viable and scalable processing solution at the price of slightly limited versatility and count rate.

To maximize the physics reach, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) plans to increase its instantaneous luminosity to 7.5×10³⁴ cm^–2s^–1 and deliver 3 – 4 ab^–1 of data at a center-of-mass energy of 14 TeV. To profit from this high-luminosity LHC operation with a pile-up up to 200 inelastic collisions per bunch crossing, performance of the ATLAS detector needs to be maintained and in many systems, improved. The upgraded detector will have an unprecedented output data rate of up to 200 TB/s. Real-time processing of this large data volume in a short time period is extremely challenging. New sets of both front-end and back-end electronics are required for all sub-detectors. The large number of detector channels, huge volumes of input and output data, short time available to process and transmit data, harsh radiation environment, and the need of low power consumption all impose great challenges on the designs of electronic systems.

Software systems contain multiple types of interrelations among components — data, control, and sequencing, among others. We are developing interconnectivity analysis techniques that derive multiple views of the structure of large-scale software systems. These techniques calculate interconnections among components and then recursively group the components into sets according to their degree of interconnection. These techniques are especially suited to large-scale systems (e.g., > 100,000 lines) since numerous types of interconnections can be determined automatically in a tractable manner. Interconnectivity analysis techniques produce visualizations of system structure and can be used to document systems, model their evolution over time, compare system structure, guide regression testing, or localize error-prone structure. In earlier work, one such technique was applied effectively in a feasibility study to characterize the error-prone components in a large-scale system from a production environment. Tools supporting interconnectivity analysis will be integrated into the Amadeus measurement-driven analysis and feedback system.

We report preliminary results of beam tests of the FONT3 Linear Collider intra-train position feedback system prototype at the Accelerator Test Facility at KEK. The feedback system incorporates a novel beam position monitor (BPM) processor with a latency below 5 nanoseconds, and a kicker driver amplifier with similar low latency. The 56 nanosecond-long bunchtrain in the ATF extraction line was used to test the prototype BPM processor. The achieved latency will allow a demonstration of intra-train feedback on timescales relevant even for the CLIC Linear Collider design.