The Project LILIA [1](ligth ions laser induced acceleration) is an experiment now running at LNF (Frascati) with the goal of producing a real proton beam able to be driven for significant distances (50–75 cm) away from the interaction point and which will act as a source for further accelerating structures. In this paper we report the description of the experimental set-up and the very preliminary results of the laser interaction with a specific target.