Signal Conditioning Front End

Before digitization, each channel passes an analog front end that amplifies, buffers, and band-limits the signal to match its diagnostic and the sampler.

Between sensor and ADC

The front end is the analog stage sitting after the cryo feedthrough and before the digitizer. It sets the gain so a low-level diagnostic uses the ADC's full range, buffers high-impedance sources so cable and feedthrough capacitance do not load them, and applies the anti-alias filter that guards the sampling rate. In a 16.84 T machine drawing 9.66 MA, it is also the first line of common-mode rejection.

Gain, offset, and range

Each diagnostic has a very different natural amplitude: a flux loop integrates to volts, a Mirnov coil delivers fast millivolt transients, a REBCO strain gauge shifts by microstrain. The front end scales each so the digitizer's dynamic range is well used (see quantization and range). Gain and offset are stored per channel in the calibration record and de-embedded downstream.

Anti-alias filtering

• A low-pass filter set below the Nyquist frequency of the chosen sample rate keeps out-of-band energy from folding into the signal.
• The filter's phase response is characterized so the fabric can correct group delay across channels.
• Filter cutoffs are versioned with the channel so a later analysis knows exactly what band was preserved.

Noise rejection at the source

Differential amplification rejects the common-mode pickup radiated by the machine's currents and the ICE-PISTON preload transients. Shielding and grounding discipline start here because noise not rejected in the analog domain cannot be fully recovered later — digital HF filtering cleans what remains but cannot undo saturation or aliasing.

The front-end topology is a design specification for both the breeder (Hyperion) and the burner; the machines are simulation and engineering studies until FOAK construction begins Q2 2027.