MedAustron

Advanced Centre for Ion Therapy and Research

Cosylab work for MedAustron comprised three areas: hardware and software design, development and integration.

The first part of the work invovled a technology study that included:

• main timing system (MTS) and power converter controller (PCC) requirements studies.
• design and development of the front end control system (FECOS) in a LabVIEW based application framework.
• fiber link protocol study for generic communication between National Instruments PXI-based equipment and PCC magnet supply.

The second part of the work involved framework development:

• definition of an application-specific TCP/IP based communication protocol, implementation of FECOS
• MTS requirements, architecture and design, MTS hardware procurement, MTS and main timing receiver (MTR) low-level programming, MTS supervisory software
• PCC architecture and design, PCC FECOS components
• FlexRIO adapter for optical link, PCC-FED (Front End Device), FlexRIO adapter programming,
• architecture and design of PCO FED, interface between FED and PCO controller, FED board development, FED FPGA software, QA for MTS, PCC and FED
• performance study of NI PXI and Labivew RT, test suite for NI PXI hardware
• FECOS design documention, study of existing ion source control system based on LabView
• ProShell C# framework skeleton development.

The activities in the implementation part of the work included:

• MedAustron Publisher Subscriber (MAPS) protocol & system
• Real-Time Event Distribution Network (REDNet) generator, acknowledgement mechanism, receiver API and functionality
• non-real time communication via MAPS and performed System Test
• Low Level Radio frequency (LLRF) Injector
• Implemention of FED in FPGA
• PCC development was done in LabView, FECOS and FPGA.
• WinCC/FECOS OPC-based communication protocol
• Ion Source controls integration