A Pulse-Signal Viewing System for Accelerators

The operation of an accelerator requires that signals from various points about the machine be available for viewing in the control room. For the linear accelerator in the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility (IAMPF), the cable-runs over which these signals must travel are up to 3000 ft in length. Consequently, a transmission system had to be developed which had a 10% to 90% rise time of 80 ns, an overshoot of ≤ 0.5 dB, and a droop of < 0.5% for a 1-ms pulse. The necessary-pre-emphasis filter for each cable run was designed by a computer program. This paper describes the system configuration, which provides for computer-controlled switching of 320 of the 660 signals and then outlines the computational procedure used in the filter design.