Calibration of a Non-Linear Beam Position Monitor Electronics by Switching Electrode Signals

Button electrode signals from beam position monitors embedded into new LHC collimators will be individually processed with front-end electronics based on compensated diode detectors and digitized with 24-bit audio-range ADCs. This scheme allows sub-micrometre beam orbit resolution to be achieved with simple hardware and no external timing. As the diode detectors only operate in a linear regime with large amplitude signals, offset errors of the electronics cannot be calibrated in the classical way with no input. This paper describes the algorithms developed to calibrate the offset and gain asymmetry of these nonlinear electronic channels. Presented algorithm application examples are based on measurements performed with prototype diode orbit systems installed on the CERN SPS and LHC machines.