Low level radio frequency control system for the European X-FEL

The requirements for RF Control Systems for the European XFEL are not only defined in terms of the stability of RF amplitude and phase but also with respect to operability, availability, and maintainability of the RF System. The field control of the vector-sum of many cavities driven by one klystron in pulsed mode at high gradients is a challenging task since Lorentz force detuning, mechanical vibrations (microphonics), and beam induced field errors must be suppressed by several orders of magnitude. This is accomplished by a combination of local and global feedback and feed-forward control.