Tuning of the natural resonance frequency of an RF cavity is crucial to achieve maximum power transfer from the cavity to the beam, to reduce power requirements, and to guarantee a predictable particle speed gain within each accelerator structure. So far, most operational cavities are frequency tuned through a phase comparison technique, which is sensitive to temperature variations if the facility or signal transportation cables are not temperature controlled. Temperature induced phase errors render this technique labor and time intensive. This paper presents an RF cavity tuning scheme, based on reflected power measurements and sliding mode extremum seeking control, to eliminate the phase measurement related difficulties. A stability analysis provides conditions on how to choose the controller parameters to guarantee stable system operation up to twice the cavity bandwidth, which is a controllable bandwidth improvement of a factor of two. The system has been implemented in two of TRIUMF’s (Canada’s particle accelerator centre) room temperature resonators and long term measurements show that the system effectively counteracts the RF heating effect as well as diurnal temperature variations.
