  The Duke storage ring is a dedicated driver for the storage ring based
oscillator free-electron lasers (FELs), and the High Intensity Gamma-ray Source
(HIGS). It is operated with a beam current ranging from about 1 mA to 100 mA
per bunch for various operations and accelerator physics studies. High
performance operations of the FEL and gamma-ray source require a stable
electron beam orbit, which has been realized by the global orbit feedback
system. As a critical part of the orbit feedback system, the electron beam
position monitors (BPMs) are required to be able to precisely measure the
electron beam orbit in a wide range of the single-bunch current. However, the
high peak voltage of the BPM pickups associated with high single-bunch current
degrades the performance of the BPM electronics, and can potentially damage the
BPM electronics. A signal conditioning method using low pass filters is
developed to reduce the peak voltage to protect the BPM electronics, and to
make the BPMs capable of working with a wide range of single-bunch current.
Simulations and electron beam based tests are performed. The results show that
the Duke storage ring BPM system is capable of providing precise orbit
measurements to ensure highly stable FEL and HIGS operations.
