SPECTROMETER MONITOR AND PROTECTION SYSTEM

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. Primary support for the subproject and the subproject's principal investigator may have been provided by other sources, including other NIH sources. The Total Cost listed for the subproject likely represents the estimated amount of Center infrastructure utilized by the subproject, not direct funding provided by the NCRR grant to the subproject or subproject staff. Our high-pulse TWTA's and mm-wave spectrometers cannot have fully passive receiver protection. A malfunction in pulse sequence generation or in receiver protecting element will be fatal for the expensive low-noise amplifier. We have considered software safeguards, which check input parameters for sanity and replay programmed pulse sequences before the experiment has started. We thus plan to develop spectrometer monitor hardware which will be based on FPGA to provide high duty-cycle safeguards by monitoring TWTA gate pulses. It will also discriminate or repair runt pulses, glitches, pulses in too rapid succession, pulses that are too long, qualify multi-pulse sequences, shut down RF pulses based on output pulse length, duty cycle and average power by means of pulse detection before and after waveguide attenuator. It will monitor status lines from an active receiver protector and from a microwave pulse-forming unit. An active receiver protector health monitoring circuit and BIT for proper ferrite state will also be implemented.