Status and Controls Requirements of the Planned Heavy Ion Tumor Therapy Accelerator Facility Hicat

The HICAT project is a Heavy Ion accelerator for light ion Cancer Treatment to be built for the clinics in Heidelberg, Germany. It consists of a 7 MeV/u linac, a compact synchrotron and three treatment places, one of them located after a 360 degree gantry beam-line. The facility will implement the intensity controlled rasterscanning technique that was developed and successfully demonstrated at GSI. In order to produce the beams with the characteristics requested by the treatment sequencer, the accelerator must operate on a pulse-topulse basis with different settings. This concept imposes strict and challenging demands on the operation of the accelerators and hence the control system of the facility. The control system should be developed, installed and maintained by and under the complete responsibility of an industrial system provider, using a state-of-the-art system and widespread industrial components wherever possible. This presentation covers the status of the project and the requirements on the control system. 1 HICAT MACHINE LAYOUT The HICAT accelerator facility was designed to meet the medical requirements used for the successful GSI cancer treatment program. HICAT consists of two ECR ion sources with independent spectrometer lines to produce both low LET ions (p, He) and high LET ions (C, O) to cover the medical requirements and allow for fast switching. The beams will be accelerated by a compact-designed 7 MeV/u linac (RFQ and IHDTL) and a 6.5 Tm synchrotron for beam energies of up to 430 MeV/u. In order to meet the intensity requirements, multi-turn injection will be used for beam accumulation. For extraction, the rf knock-out method in combination with a variable extraction time will be implemented. The beams can be delivered to three medical treatment areas, located after two fixed horizontal beam lines and one 360° rotating beam transport system (isocentric gantry), as well as one quality assurance/experimental place. No passive elements are foreseen to match the dose distribution to the individual tumor geometry. Instead, all beam lines will be equipped with horizontal and vertical scanning magnets and beam diagnostic devices for the intensity controlled-raster scanning technique that was developed and successfully demonstrated within the GSI experimental cancer treatment program with over 100 patients to date. Fig. 1 shows the cross section of the first underground floor of the building which houses the accelerator sections, the patient treatment areas, local control rooms and various laboratories and offices. For a general description of the accelerator complex, see [1].