1. A radiotherapeutic apparatus comprising a source of ionizing radiation, a detector arranged to measure an output energy of the source, and a control apparatus arranged to monitor the measured output energy during treatment of a patient, wherein the source emits a therapeutic beam of radiation in a pulsed manner as a series of pulses, the detector is synchronized with the source to measure an output energy of each pulse of the series of pulses, and the control apparatus is arranged to control pulse energy of a subsequent pulse of the series of pulses in dependence on the measured output energy of each pulse during treatment of the patient.
2. The radiotherapeutic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the detector is arranged to measure the energy output since the last measurement.
3. The radiotherapeutic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the detector is a ionization chamber.
4. The radiotherapeutic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a measurement event of the detector is triggered between each pulse.
5. The radiotherapeutic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the therapeutic beam of radiation is variable by varying a pulse repetition frequency.
6. A radiotherapeutic apparatus comprising a source of ionizing radiation, a detector arranged to receive sequential triggers and measure energy output of the source between triggers, and a control apparatus arranged to monitor the measured energy output of individual pulses of radiation emitted by the source and to provide an indication in response to the measured energy output deviating from a defined range during treatment of a patient, wherein the source emits a therapeutic amount of radiation in a pulsed manner as a series of pulses, the sequential triggers occur between pulses of radiation emitted by the source such that the detector measures the energy output of each pulse of the series of pulses, and a trigger rate of the detector is of the same order of magnitude as a pulse rate of the source.
7. The radiotherapeutic apparatus of claim 6, wherein the control apparatus is configured to control the source to cease emitting radiation in the pulsed manner when the measured energy output deviates from the defined range.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A heartbeat mechanism for a clustered system including a plurality of nodes, comprising:
a quorum file for receiving heartbeat messages from the plurality of nodes;
a network controller for connecting the quorum file to the plurality of nodes with a serial bus that establishes peer-to-peer and point-to-point device communication;
a node map maintained by the network controller for identifying active nodes based on signals from the serial bus; and
a status logic for determining a status of a node from the plurality of nodes by comparing heartbeat messages in the quorum file written by the node and the node map.
2. The heartbeat mechanism of claim 1 where the serial bus is a self-monitoring and self-configuring serial bus.
3. A method of monitoring nodes in a cluster of computing nodes, the method comprising:
connecting the nodes with a communication bus that establishes peer-to-peer and point-to-point device communication;
allocating a quorum file for storing status messages received from nodes in the cluster;
periodically receiving a status message from a node in the cluster indicating that the node is active, the status message being received based on signals generated from the serial bus;
maintaining a node map of active nodes in the cluster based on signal changes from the serial bus; and
determining whether a node is active by comparing status messages in the quorum file and the node map.
4. The method of claim 3 where connecting the nodes includes connecting a self-monitoring and self-configuring serial bus.
5. A clustered computing system comprising:
a plurality of nodes;
a quorum file for receiving heartbeat messages from the plurality of nodes;
a serial bus connected between the plurality of nodes and the quorum file, where the serial bus establishes a peer-to-peer network with point-to-point node communication;
a node map for identifying active nodes based on signal changes from the serial bus; and
a status logic for determining a status of a node from the plurality of nodes by comparing heartbeat messages in the quorum file written by the node and the node map.
6. The clustered computing system of claim 5 where the serial bus is a self-monitoring and self-configuring serial bus connected between the plurality of nodes and the quorum file.