Control system for cancer therapy with a heavy ion beam at GSI

A system of three dimensional raster scanning of carbon beam used for cancer therapy has been designed and built at GSI and is in operation since December, 1997. The following components are presented: 1. The front-end real-time system. It is based on VME boards with DSPs designed and built at GSI. In treatment mode, the beam is steered and controlled automatically according to the patient's treatment plan. 2. The on-line monitoring system. During the treatment all data measured by the front-ends is sent via a separate bus to a memory located in a second VME crate. A data server in this crate sends the data as it arrives via TCP to the therapy on-line monitor program, TOM, which displays the treatment process in nearly real-time. 3. The data acquisition and analysis system. In experimental mode the same system is used for quality control and calibration of the beam before the treatment. The measured beam positions and shapes are sent through the same data channel to an analysis package developed at GSI.