Design of a Detector Electronics System for Feedback Control of Proton Beam Intensity in the LLUMC Proton Medical Accelerator

Optivus Technology, Inc.
1999–00

Optivus Technology uses a proton accelerator as a radiation source for treating cancer patients. The current method of attacking tumors with the proton beam has been successful, but Optivus would like to improve the treatment by using a raster-scanning technique, requiring a much tighter control on the beam intensity. Our goal is to develop an improved electronics system to process the output of a beam intensity detector, allowing a feedback loop to control the beam at a much higher bandwidth.

Advisor(s): Richard Campbell Haskell and Samuel Tanenbaum.