A New Target-Manipulator Control Interface

Using LabVIEW software and hardware, a new 3-axis 3-rotation target-positioning control interface has been constructed for the 15R end station of the 1.7 MV tandem Pelletron accelerator. The new system adjusts the position of the target within the 15R end station by remotely controlling three stepper motors in the X, Y, and Z directions. Two additional motors control rotation about the Theta (θ) and Phi (φ) axes. A sixth motor is dedicated to actuating the angular position of a detector. Previously, in order to control the manipulator, five switches were used to individually control the stepper motors. While these switches gave coarse control for the target and detector, the precise position of each motor was unknown. To improve the precision and accuracy of the control system, a Target manipulator LabVIEW system was designed at SUNY Geneseo. The LabVIEW system improves precision by allowing users to digitally input the desired position of the target and the detector with positional resolution of .001 mm and angular resolution of .01° then save those settings for future use. This will improve the reproducibility of the experimental configuration. In addition, the LabVIEW system includes limit indicators and locking mechanisms that prevent users from operating more than one stepper motor at a time which was not possible with the previous control system. Funded in part by the US Department of Energy through the Laboratory of Laser Energetics.