Abstract

Measurement and Acquisition for High Precision Power Converter Current Regulation for Particles Accelerators

Particle accelerators use magnetic fields produced by electro-magnets to control the trajectory of particles beams. The magnets are supplied by electrical power converters, which can be seen as current sources employing digital control to accurately follow a given current reference function. Since the current delivered by the power converters has a direct impact on the trajectory of the particle beams, it needs to be controlled with extremely high precision. The key elements determining the precision performance of power converters are: the analog measurement chain of the current (sensors, transducers, conditioning electronics), the Analog to Digital Converters, and the digital control (algorithm) itself. With a focus on these three key elements this presentation will discuss the challenges faced and the technologies used to control electrical currents with part per million level uncertainty.

Miguel Cerqueira Bastos

Miguel Cerqueira Bastos was born in Porto, Portugal, in 1975. He received his university degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Portugal, in 1999. After initially working as a Project Engineer on traffic information systems at EFACEC, Porto, he joined CERN in 2002 as a Project Engineer in Analogue electronics, with particular emphasis on precision current measurement and A-D conversion. From 2002 to 2008 he participated in the development and characterization of high accuracy calibration instruments and current transducers for the power converters of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. As of December 2008, he is the section leader of the High Precision Measurements section from the Electrical Power Converters group at CERN. As such, he is responsible for all the high precision aspects of CERN’s power converters and in particular the operation of the LHC calibration system and the electrical standards laboratory.

Michele Martino

Michele Martino was born in Napoli, Italy, on July 23, 1975. He received the MSc in Electronics Engineering (magna cum laude) and the PhD in Electrical Engineering at the University of Napoli Federico II. His PhD research was carried out at CERN on the high precision position survey of the Large Hadron Collider collimators. Before joining CERN, in 2006, he worked as control algorithm designer for FIAT on Traction Control in 2004 and then, in 2005, as fellow for the I.N.F.N. (Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics) on the LHCb muon detector front end electronics testing. In 2010, he joined the Electrical Power Converters group in CERN Technology department to work on the high-precision electrical measurements and high-performance digital controls required by the power converters of CERN accelerators. Until 2016 he was responsible for the powering of the brand new HIE-ISOLDE particle accelerator and he is now in charge of the powering of HL-LHC: the High Luminosity upgrade, foreseen by 2026, of the Large Hadron Collider, the CERN flag-ship particle accelerator.