Commissioning of a new digital transverse damper system at the PSB

At the CERN Proton Synchrotron Booster, PSB, an analog transverse damper system has been in operation since 1999, providing satisfactory operational results with the proton beam supplied by Linac2. As a consequence of the LHC Injectors Upgrade, the PSB will face new challenges imposed by higher intensity, injection and extraction energy. In this framework, the transverse feedback system is subject to an upgrade to adapt to the expected Linac4 beam and to the demands for new features including transverse blow-up, beam excitation for optics measurements and new remote control and monitoring capabilities. The replacement of the aging electronic hardware is also recommended to improve the system maintainability for future years. During 2018 a new digital transverse feedback electronics was installed in the PSB, in parallel with the current operational one, offering for the first time the occasion to demonstrate its performance with beam. Encouraging results were obtained such as the suppression of beam instabilities at all PSB energies and intensities. In this paper we describe the steps undertaken in 2018 in order to commission the system with the main goal to accelerate and extract the highest intensity beams produced at the PSB.