SPES (Selective Production of Exotic Species) is an INFN project to develop a Radioactive Ion Beam (RIB) facility as an intermediate step toward EURISOL. The key feature of SPES is to provide high intensity and high-quality beams of neutron rich nuclei to perform forefront research in nuclear structure, reaction dynamics and interdisciplinary fields like medical, biological and material sciences. The exotic isotopes will be reaccelerated by the ALPI Superconducting Linac at energies of 11 AMeV for masses in the region of A = 130 amu with an expected rate on target of 10 9 pps. This represent a substantial improvement to the actual available ISOL facilities both from the point of view of intensity and energy of the exotic beam.

Under control system aspect, a migration process and upgrade is required due to the fact that EPICS has been chosen as main control framework for the new facility. The EPICS group has been involved in this operation, developing and providing new solutions.

Works and Tasks

Due to the complexity of the Project and the effort required to substitute the old home-made control system with the new EPICS based, a modular approach has been adopted in order to guarantee the correct migration process and, at the same time, guarantee the normal operation for the existing acceleration machines (ALPI and PIAVE). In addition to that, many brand new system realted to new pieces of accelerator are under design.

The principal areas of interest under development are: