Project
The Otero project implements the system that synchronizes all the high-tech components of the synchrotron at the CNAO Foundation’s facility in Pavia. The National Center for Oncological Hadrontherapy (CNAO) is the only facility in Italy capable of providing hadron therapy treatments using protons and carbon ions. Worldwide, there are only six centers capable of applying this therapy, including CNAO in Pavia. The success of the timing and utilization of the proton and carbon ion particle beam has allowed for the optimization of the accelerator’s occupancy time, safeguarding the time dedicated to patient treatment while also improving access to this technique for research and experimentation.
Client
Industries
Our added Values
Our intervention was crucial in terms of expertise and added value in the following activities:
- Supporting the definition of the architecture and the correct trade-off between off-the-shelf boards and custom-designed boards.
- Designing custom boards, which required technological expertise in HW design and the generation of files necessary for production.
- Defining the FPGA architecture, clock tree, synchronization distribution and locking mechanisms, and the protocol transmitted over fiber. Developing the FPGA code, Place and Route, verification, and validation.
- Conducting extensive and structured Verification and Validation activities for a medical project like this, which required expertise across various technological domains (electronics, FPGA, firmware, system).
Results
Overall, in the project, we contributed to both qualitative and quantitative improvements. Specifically, we were responsible for:
- Implementing the system, using a National Instruments COTS platform, which ensured a high degree of modularity and integration with custom-developed hardware boards. This resulted in a subsystem with a good balance between performance, scalability, and cost.
- Optimizing and automating operations in particle beam management, which enabled the treatment of more patients within the same timeframe (a 5% increase in treatments with the ion species generated at the time of commissioning). Meanwhile, the time allocated for experimentation increased by up to 25%, bringing the overall usage of the accelerator to nearly 90%.