Automatic Tuning of the LBL Superhilac Third Injector Transport Line

Testing of a new automatic tuning procedure in an LBL SuperHILAC beam transport line has been conducted with the third injector microcomputer control system. This technique is an advance over the sequential station-by-station automatic tuning method developed for the Bevalac transfer line. The computer now performs steering/focusing adjustments simultaneously on a number of quadrupole and dipole magnets comprising multiple-station sections of the injection line. New magnet currents are computed from equations governing beam optics in a real-time simulation of the beam line. The key to this technique is the calculation of beam transverse emittance utilizing the same control magnets and beam profile monitors used for manual tuning of the line. This emittance calculation requires high resolution beam profile measurements using multi-wire profile monitors recently installed in the third injector line.