ABSTRACTIMPLEMENTATION OF ENVELOPE TRACKING FOR RF SOLID STATE AMPLIFIERSBy Thomas Larter The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) is currently in its development stages at Michigan State University. The facility uses a large linear accelerator system to accelerate ionized particles which are then collided with other particles in the hopes of finding rare isotopes of elements. This accelerating action depends on several systems to function, with one of the major systems being superconducting cavity structures. These cavities are driven by high-power RF amplifiers which account for a large portion of the accelerator's power consumption. It is important to maximize the efficiency of these amplifiers in order to keep energy costs for the facility low. One of the ways to increase efficiency is to choose an amplifier topology that is highly efficient. A study was done for FRIB testing the prospect of using amplifiers with the envelope tracking (ET) topology. An amplifier's efficiency relies on its output power and the power supplied to it, which are in turn directly related to the output signal voltage and supply rail voltage. In an ET RF amplifier, the supply voltage is made to closely follow the envelope of the output signal voltage. This tracking action allows the RF amplifier to operate with much improved efficiency at low power levels and nearly constant efficiency at high power levels. The ET tests performed for FRIB attempted to verify the validity of ET efficiency gains for RF amplifiers. These tests included the characterization of an RF amplifier, development and verification of an ET control algorithm, and implementation of an ET test bench using FRIB equipment. These tests should attest to the purported increase in efficiency possible with ET and prove that the power consumption budget for the FRIB will benefit from the use of such amplifiers.
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