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The vacuum system of ALPI accelerator includes about 40 pumping groups based on turbomolecular pumps. The instrumentation of the accelerators complex is mainly the one installed in 90s, with consequent maintenance issues. The control and supervision systems were developed in the same period by an external company, which produced custom solutions for the HW and SW parts. Control devices are based on custom PLCs, while the supervision system is based on C and C#. The communication between the field and the supervisor is composed of multiple levels: RS-232 standard is used to transfer control parameter from the field devices up to custom multiplexers; RS-485 transmission is used from the multiplexers to two PC servers covering different sections of the installation; while Ethernet, is used to connect the servers and the operation console. Obsolescence and rigidity of the system, deficit of spare parts and impossibility of reparation or modification without external support, required a complete renovation of the vacuum system and relative controls in the next years. This paper describes the adopted strategy and the implementation status., Proceedings of the 13th International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2022, Bangkok, Thailand

The need to get finer data to describe the beam is a relevant topic for all laboratories. For the SPES project at Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro (LNL) a new diagnostic control system with more performing hardware, with respect to the one used in legacy accelerators based on Versabus Module Eurocard (VME) ADCs, has been developed. The new system uses a custom hardware to acquire signals in real time. These data and ancillary operations are managed by a control system based on the Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) standard and shown to users on a Control System Studio (CSS) graphical user interface. The new system improves the basic functionalities, current read-back over Beam Profilers (BP) and Faraday Cups (FC) and handlings control, with new features such as: multiple hardware gain levels selection, broken wires correction through polynomial interpolation and roto-translations taking into account alignment parameters. Another important feature, integrated with the usage of a python Finite State Machine (FSM), is the capability to control an emittance meter to quickly acquire data and calculate beam longitudinal phase space through the scubeex method., Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Accelerator and Large Experimental Physics Control Systems, ICALEPCS2021, Shanghai, China

In the field of Experimental Physics and Industrial Control Systems (EPICS)*, the traditional tool to implement high level procedures is the Sequencer*. While this is a mature, fast, and well-proven software, it comes with some drawbacks. For example, it���s based on a custom C-like programming language which may be unfamiliar to new users and it often results in complex, hard to read code. This paper presents pysmlib, a free and open source Python library developed as a simpler alternative to the EPICS Sequencer. The library exposes a simple interface to develop event-driven Finite State Machines (FSM), where the inputs are connected to Channel Access Process Variables (PV) thanks to the PyEpics** integration. Other features include parallel FSM with multi-threading support and input sharing, timers, and an integrated watchdog logic. The library offers a lower barrier to enter and greater extensibility thanks to the large ecosystem of scientific and engineering python libraries, making it a perfect fit for modern control system requirements. Pysmlib has been deployed in multiple projects at INFN Legnaro National Laboratories (LNL), proving its robustness and flexibility., Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Accelerator and Large Experimental Physics Control Systems, ICALEPCS2021, Shanghai, China

The first tank of Drift Tube Linac (DTL) for the European Spallation Source ERIC (ESS), delivered by INFN, has been installed in the ESS tunnel in Summer 2021. The DTL-1 is designed to accelerate a 62.5 mA proton beam from 3.62 MeV up to 21 MeV. It consists of 61 accelerating gaps, alternate with 60 drift tubes equipped with Permanent Magnet Quadrupole (PMQ) in a FODO lattice. The remaining drift tubes are equipped with dipole correctors (steerers), beam position monitors (BPMs) or empty. The total length of the cavity is 7.6 m and it is stabilized by post couplers. Two waveguide couplers feed the DTL with the 2.2 MW of RF power required for beam operation, equally divided by RF power losses and beam power. This paper first presents the main systems required for the DTL conditioning. Then it summarizes the main steps and results of this high power RF conditioning done at ESS to prepare the DTL for the consequent beam commissioning., Proceedings of the 31st International Linear Accelerator Conference, LINAC2022, Liverpool, UK

A high-level software BOLINA (Beam Orbit for LINear Accelerators) has been designed to fully characterise and automatically correct the ion beams trajectory, to help operators during the beam transport with an easily scalable suite for LINACs. Currently, the high-level software, interfaced with an EPICS control system, automatically manages accelerator devices to preserve the beam quality, including beam-based alignment and, if needed, dispersion-free steering software. The suite has been developed to satisfy and commutate the software easily on different machine, using interceptive /not interceptive diagnostics. The software was designed for ELI-np and now is under test at Legnaro National Laboratories of INFN using the installed accelerators complex. In particular, BOLINA has been successfully tested on the Adige Injector 1+ beamline of the SPES Project where the system response matrix is measured on interceptive beam diagnostic by varying both electrostatic and magnetic steerers. This paper describes results and strategies to reduce trajectory residuals close to the diagnostic resolutions and their effectiveness to prepare the commissioning of LINACs., Proceedings of the 13th International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2022, Bangkok, Thailand

The SPES project is based at INFN LNL and covers basic research in nuclear physics, radionuclide production, materials science research, nuclear technology and medicine. The Radioactive Ion Beam (RIB) produced by SPES will be accelerated by ALPI, which is a linear accelerator, equipped with superconducting quarter wave resonators (QWRs) and operating at LNL since 1990. For RIB acceleration it is mandatory to perform an upgrade of ALPI which consists of the implementation of two additional cryostats, containing 4 accelerating cavities each, in the high-ß section. The QWRs production technology is well established. The production technology of Nb/Cu QWRs should be adjusted for high-ß cavities production. In the framework of the upgrade, several vacuum systems were refurbished, optimal parameters of the biased sputtering processes of copper QWR cavities and plates were defined. The process of mechanical and chemical preparation, sputtering and cryogenic measurement of the high-ß Nb/Cu QWR cavities were adjusted. Several QWR cavities were already produced and measured. Currently, the production of the Nb/Cu sputtered QWR cavities and plates is ongoing., Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on RF Superconductivity, SRF2021, East Lansing, MI, USA

International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF) is the neutron source for simulating fusion reactor environment using two 40 MeV/125 mA CW D+ beams. LIPAc facility is under construction in Rokkasho for validating 9 MeV/125 mA CW linac technology as a prototype of the IFMIF accelerator. Commissioning of 5 MeV CW RFQ is underway after the completion of installation of RFQ, MEBT, diagnostic plate. low power beam dump, RF power system and their auxiliaries. As the first step, high power RF conditioning is planned to complete in early 2018 and beam commissioning will start with stepwise approach at the same time. The status of LIPAc construction for preparing 9 MeV acceleration and results of RFQ beam commissioning are presented., 29th Linear Accelerator Conference-LINAC18

International audience; The IFMIF project aiming at material tests for a future fusion DEMO reactor is under the EVEDA phase in the BA Agreement of fusion program between Japan and EU. As the accelerator activity, the installation and commissioning of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) is at the second stage of demonstration of the feasibility of the low energy section of an IFMIF deuteron accelerator up to 9 MeV with a beam current of 125 mA, CW. The installation of injector, RFQ, MEBT, D-Plate and LPBD for LIPAc with 8 coaxial high-power transmission lines and RF power system was just done in 2017 at Rokkasho, Japan. After that, the RF conditioning of RFQ for beam commissioning is underway. The beam commissioning of RFQ with H⁺/D⁺ and the acceleration demonstration up to 5 MeV-125 mA-0.1% duty cycle with D⁺ will be done.

IFMIF, the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility, is an accelerator-based neutron source that will use Li(d, xn) reactions to generate a flux of neutrons with a broad peak at 14 MeV equivalent to the conditions of the Deuterium-Tritium reactions in a fusion power plant. IFMIF is conceived for fusion materials testing. The IFMIF prototype linear accelerator (LIPAc) is jointly developed by Europe and Japan within the IFMIF EVEDA project: it is composed of an ion source, a LEBT, an RFQ, a MEBT and a SC linac, with a final energy of 9 MeV. The 4-vane Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ), developed by INFN in Italy, will accelerate a 130 mA deuteron beam from 0.1 to 5 MeV in continuous wave, for a beam power of 650 kW. The 9.8 m long 175 MHz cavity is composed of 18 x 0.54 m long modules flanged together and aligned within 0.3 mm tolerance. The RFQ was completed, delivered and assembled at the Rokkasho site and is presently under extended RF tests. The second phase of beam commissioning (up to 2.5 MeV/u) was scheduled to start at the end of 2017. Several unexpected issues and incidents significantly delayed the original program, which is however proceeding step by step toward the full achievement of its goals., 9th International Particle Accelerator COnference - IPAC2018

For the SPES project at Legnaro National Laboratories (LNL), a Low-Level Radio Frequency (LLRF) has been designed to have flexibility, reusability and an high precision. It is an FPGA-based digital feedback control system using RF ADCs for the direct undersampling and it can control at the same time eight different cavities. The LLRF system was tested on the field with an accelerated beam. In the last year some improvements on the firmware, software and hardware of the control system have been done. In this paper the results carried out in the more recent tests, the future works and the upgrades of the system will be detailed., Proceedings of the 16th Int. Conf. on Accelerator and Large Experimental Control Systems, ICALEPCS2017, Barcelona, Spain

SPES (Selective Production of Exotic Species) is an ISOL type facility for production and post-acceleration of exotic nuclei for forefront research in nuclear physics. Radioactive (RA) species (A=80/160) will be produced by fissions induced by a proton beam impinging on an UCx target: the proton beam will be delivered by a com-mercial cyclotron with a 40 MeV maximum energy and a 0.25 mA maximum current. The RA species, extracted from the Target-Ion-Source system as a 1+ beam , will be cooled in a RFQ (radiofrequency quadrupole) beam cool-er (RFQ-BC) and purified from the isobars contaminants through a High Resolution Mass Separator (HRMS). Post-acceleration will be performed via an ECR-based charge breeder, delivering the obtained q+ RA beam to a being built CW RFQ and to the being upgraded superconducting (sc) linac ALPI (up to 10 MeV/A for a mass-to-charge ratio A/q=7)., Proceedings of the 9th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada

The ALPI linac at INFN-LNL was substantially refur-bished in 2018, especially in view of its use as secondary accelerator for exotic species in the framework of the SPES project. In particular: 10 magnetic triplets were replaced with higher gradient ones; two cryomodules with quarter wave resonator were moved from the PIAVE injector to ALPI, so as to make them available both for exotic and stable beams; the cryogenic plant was renovat-ed; the whole linac, its injector and its beam lines were eventually realigned via LASER tracking (LT). The ex-pected outcome of the refurbishment project is a larger beam transmission (crucial for the efficient transport of the unavoidably low current exotic beams) and improved overall reliability so as to further extend the lifetime of an already 25 years old machine. The hardware commission-ing of this new configuration will be reported., Proceedings of the 10th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2019, Melbourne, Australia

The new Low-Level Radio Frequency (LLRF) control system for linear accelerator at Legnaro National Laboratories (LNL) of INFN is presently being commissioned. A digital Radio Frequency (RF) controller was implemented. Its goal is to stabilize the amplitude, the phase and the frequency of the superconducting cavities of the Linac. The resonance frequency of the low beta cavities is 80 MHz, while medium and high beta cavities resonate at 160 MHz. Each RF controller controls at the same time eight different cavities. The hardware complexity of the RF controller (RF IOC) is reduced by adopting direct RF sampling and the RF to baseband conversion method. The main hardware components are RF ADCs for the direct undersampling of the signals picked up from cavities, a Xilinx Kintek 7 FPGA for the signal processing and DACs for driving the power amplifiers and hence the cavities. In the RF IOC the serial communication between FPGA and ADCs and between FPGA and DACs is based on JESD204b standard. An RF front-end board (RFFE) is placed between cavities and the RF IOC. This is used to adapt the power level of the RF signal from the cavities to the ADCs and from the DACs to the power amplifiers. This paper addresses the LLRF control system focusing on the hardware design of the RF IOC and RFFE boards and on the first test results carried out with the new controller., Proceedings of the 28th Linear Accelerator Conf., LINAC2016, East Lansing, MI, USA

The Computer-on-Module approach makes cutting edge technology easily accessible and lowers the entry barriers to anyone prototyping and developing embedded systems. Furthermore, it is possible to add all the system specific functionalities to the generic PC functions which are readily available in an off-the-shelf core module reducing the time to market and enhancing the creativity of system engineers. The purpose of this paper is to show a custom hardware platform based on the tiny and low power Intel Edison Compute Module, which uses a 22nm Intel processing core and contains connectivity elements to ensure device-to-device and device-to-cloud connectivity. The Intel Edison carrier board designed is expected to act as a local intelligent node, a readily available custom EPICS*,** IOC for extending the control reach to small appliances in the context of the SPES project. The board acts as an Ethernet to RS232/RS422 interface translator with Power-Over-Ethernet supply and network booting as key features of this platform. The x86 architecture of the Edison makes standard Linux software deployment straightforward. Currently the board is in prototyping stage., Proceedings of the 15th Int. Conf. on Accelerator and Large Experimental Physics Control Systems, ICALEPCS2015, Melbourne, Australia

The IFMIF project aiming at material tests for a future fusion DEMO reactor is under the EVEDA phase in the BA Agreement of fusion program between Japan and EU. As the accelerator activity, the installation and commissioning of the Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator (LIPAc) is at the second stage of demonstration of the feasibility of the low energy section of an IFMIF deuteron accelerator up to 9 MeV with a beam current of 125 mA, CW. The installation of injector, RFQ, MEBT, D-Plate and LPBD for LIPAc with 8 coaxial high-power transmission lines and RF power system was just done in 2017 at Rokkasho, Japan. After that, the RF conditioning of RFQ for beam commissioning is underway. The beam commissioning of RFQ with H⁺/D⁺ and the acceleration demonstration up to 5 MeV-125 mA-0.1% duty cycle with D⁺ will be done., Proceedings of the 61\textsuperscript{st} ICFA ABDW on High-Intensity and High-Brightness Hadron Beams, HB2018, Daejeon, Korea

The ADIGE (Acceleratore Di Ioni a Grande carica Esotici) injector of the SPES (Selective Production of Exotic Species) project is now in an advanced phase of installation. Its main components have been designed following particular needs of the project: first, an Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR)-based Charge Breeder (SPES-CB), to boost the charge states of the radioactive ions produced at SPES and allow their post-acceleration. Then, a stable 1+ source and a complete electrostatic beam line to characterize the SPES-CB. Finally, a unique Medium Resolution Mass Spectrometer (MRMS, R=1/1000), mounted on a high voltage platform downstream the SPES-CB, to clean the radioactive beam from the contaminants induced by the breeding stage. This contribution describes the status of the injector, in particular the installation of the platform housing the MRMS, the access and safety system adopted and the first beams to be extracted from the stable 1+ source., Proceedings of the 10th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2019, Melbourne, Australia