Development of Microcontroller-Based System for Background Radiation Monitoring

Abstract

An appearance of radiometers and dosimeters on free sale made it possible to provide better radiation safety for citizens. The effects of radiation may not appear all at once. They can manifest themselves in decades to come in future generations, in the form of cancer, genetic mutations, etc. For this reason, we have developed in this paper a microcontroller-based radiation monitoring system. The system determines an accumulated radiation dose for a certain period, as well as gives alarm signals when the rate of the equivalent dose exceeds. The high reliability of this system is ensured by a rapid response to emergency situations: excess of the allowable power of the equivalent radiation dose and the accumulator charge control. Further, we have composed a microcontroller electronic circuit for the monitoring radiation system. Additionally, an operation algorithm, as well as software for the ATmega328P microcontroller of the Arduino Uno board, have been developed.

Keywords

• background radiation monitoring system
• Atmel AVR ATmega328 microcontroller (MC)
• Geiger-Mueller counter
• Petri net model