STATUS AND CONCEPTUAL DESIGN OF THE CONTROL SYSTEM FOR THE HEAVY ION THERAPY ACCELERATOR FACILITY HICAT

HICAT is a hospital-based heavy ion accelerator facility for cancer treatment presently being built for the university clinics of Heidelberg, Germany. The accelerator was designed by GSI, based on the technique and experience of the experimental cancer treatment project at GSI with over 250 patients successfully treated at present. All major components and systems of the HICAT facility are being supplied by industrial partners. This includes the accelerator control system that is being developed and will be installed, commissioned and maintained by and under the responsibility of an industrial system provider. Civil construction work on the building already started in early 2004, the installation of the first accelerator components is scheduled for the autumn of 2005. This presentation covers the status of the HICAT project, experiences with the industrial partnership and project management as well as the conceptional design of the accelerator control system. Emphasis will be placed on technical challenges such as the pulse-to-pulse operation with different settings as required by the intensitycontrolled raster scanning technique, fast timing system and process synchronization.