Particle beam irradiation equipment

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10199148-B2
Application number	US-201415515345-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 28, 2014
Priority date	Nov 28, 2014
Publication date	Feb 5, 2019
Grant date	Feb 5, 2019

Abstract

In particle beam irradiation equipment, a control unit causes a storage unit to store, as position information of reference positions, position information of electromagnets that is acquired at the time of their first alignment, by cameras, and then acquires displacement amounts, based on the position information of the reference positions stored in the storage unit and from position information of the electromagnets acquired at the time of their realignment, by the cameras.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. Particle beam irradiation equipment comprising:
a first electromagnet provided on an upstream side of a high-energy-beam irradiation-system line;
a second electromagnet provided on a downstream side of the high-energy-beam irradiation-system line;
a position information acquisition unit that acquires position information of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet;
a storage unit in which the position information of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet, at the time of their first alignment, is prestored as relative reference position information, wherein the relative reference position information defines a relative relationship in position and attitude between the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet;
an adjustment mechanism that adjusts positions and attitudes of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet; and
a control unit that calculates, based on the relative reference position information stored in the storage unit, and from position information of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet acquired at the time of their realignment by the position information acquisition unit, displacement amounts of positions and attitudes of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet occurring from the time of the first alignment to the time of the realignment, and controls/adjusts using the adjustment mechanism, the positions and attitudes of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet according to the displacement amounts.

2. The particle beam irradiation equipment according to claim 1 , wherein the control unit adjusts the position and attitude of either one of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet, to thereby control relative positions and attitudes of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet.

3. The particle beam irradiation equipment according to claim 2 , wherein: the position information acquisition unit comprises a plurality of stereo cameras; the stereo cameras are so arranged that angles of view of respective adjacent stereo cameras among them are overlapped with each other; and the position information acquisition unit acquires the position information of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet in such a manner that position coordinates of the adjacent stereo cameras are converted so that their coordinate systems are matched to each other, on the basis of position coordinates of at least four targets placed in the angles of view.

4. The particle beam irradiation equipment according to claim 2 , wherein the position information acquisition unit comprises a deformation simulator, and acquires the position information of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet through calculation, using the deformation simulator.

5. The particle beam irradiation equipment according to claim 2 , wherein the position information acquisition unit comprises GPS transmitters and a GPS receiver; the GPS transmitters comprise at least three GPS transmitters placed on each of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet; the GPS receiver is solely placed and acquires the position information of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet transmitted from the GPS transmitters; and the control unit calculates the displacement amounts of positions and attitudes of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet, from the position information received by the GPS receiver, using a position of the GPS receiver as a reference.

6. The particle beam irradiation equipment according to claim 2 , wherein the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet are respectively placed on different floors in a building.

7. The particle beam irradiation equipment according to claim 1 , wherein: the position information acquisition unit comprises a plurality of stereo cameras; the stereo cameras are so arranged that angles of view of respective adjacent stereo cameras among them are overlapped with each other; and the position information acquisition unit acquires the position information of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet in such a manner that position coordinates of the adjacent stereo cameras are converted so that their coordinate systems are matched to each other, on the basis of position coordinates of at least four targets placed in the angles of view.

8. The particle beam irradiation equipment according to claim 1 , wherein the position information acquisition unit comprises a deformation simulator, and acquires the position information of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet through calculation, using the deformation simulator.

9. The particle beam irradiation equipment according to claim 7 , wherein the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet are respectively placed on different floors in a building.

10. The particle beam irradiation equipment according to claim 8 , wherein the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet are respectively placed on different floors in a building.

11. The particle beam irradiation equipment according to claim 1 , wherein the position information acquisition unit comprises GPS transmitters and a GPS receiver; the GPS transmitters comprise at least three GPS transmitters placed on each of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet; the GPS receiver is solely placed and acquires the position information of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet transmitted from the GPS transmitters; and the control unit calculates the displacement amounts of positions and attitudes of the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet, from the position information received by the GPS receiver, using a position of the GPS receiver as a reference.

12. The particle beam irradiation equipment according to claim 11 , wherein the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet are respectively placed on different floors in a building.

13. The particle beam irradiation equipment according to claim 1 , wherein the first electromagnet and the second electromagnet are respectively placed on different floors in a building.

Assignees

• Mitsubishi Electric Corp

Inventors

• Otani Toshihiro
• Iwata Takaaki

Classifications

• H05H2245/30

  Medical applications · CPC title

• H05H2277/10

  Medical devices · CPC title

• H05H2245/122

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01F7/20 Primary

  without armatures (cores H01F3/00; coils H01F5/00 {; shaping metal by applying magnetic forces B21D26/14; electromagnets specially adapted for NMR applications G01R33/381}) · CPC title

• A61N5/1043

  Scanning the radiation beam, e.g. spot scanning or raster scanning · CPC title