Real-Time-Capable Betatron Tune Measurement from Schottky Spectra Using Deep Learning and Uncertainty-Aware Kalman Filtering

TL;DR

This paper introduces a lightweight deep learning approach combined with uncertainty-aware Kalman filtering for real-time, robust betatron tune measurement from noisy Schottky spectra in compact proton-therapy synchrotrons.

Contribution

It presents a novel neural network architecture that provides real-time tune extraction with calibrated uncertainty estimates, improving robustness over traditional methods.

Findings

Significant performance improvement over traditional peak detection at low SNRs

Real-time inference with sub-millisecond latency on standard GPU hardware

Stable tune tracking validated on operational beam data

Abstract

Betatron tune measurement is essential for beam control in compact proton-therapy synchrotrons, yet conventional peak-detection techniques are not robust under the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions typical of these machines. This work presents a lightweight convolutional neural network that performs real-time tune extraction from Schottky spectra with sub-millisecond inference latency and calibrated uncertainty estimates. The model uses attention-based pooling for reliable peak localization and a dual-branch architecture that jointly predicts the tune and its associated uncertainty. Trained with a Laplace negative log-likelihood loss, it produces uncertainty estimates whose magnitude tracks the instantaneous prediction error, which enables uncertainty-aware Kalman filtering for temporal smoothing. Experiments on a large synthetic dataset spanning SNR levels from 0 to $-20$\,dB demonstrate substantial performance gains over traditional peak-detection baselines, while the Kalman filter further suppresses transient outliers in time-series operation. Preliminary validation on operational beam data confirms stable tune tracking without retraining. With only about $2.0\times 10^{4}$ trainable parameters and real-time inference on commodity GPU hardware, the proposed diagnostic offers a practical solution for rapid and accurate betatron tune monitoring in compact medical synchrotrons and similar accelerators.