Wide-range portable dosimeter based on microcontroller

Abstract

In this paper, a technique for wide-range radiation measurement and analysis suitable for portable instruments, has been presented. Instead of expensive analog devices and ionization chamber detectors, a microcontroller and a Geiger-Muller tube (GM) are employed to implement this instrument. The nonlinear counting rate/dose rate curves of GM tubes are fitted into quadratic or 3/sup rd/ order polynomial equations that are solved using the microcontroller. A measurement program that uses the capabilities of CMOS microcontrollers for power saving is presented. The integrated dose, dose rate, and battery check functions are implemented. By obtaining the equation of a GM tube, we can extend the dose rate range beyond the linear portion of its curve. Very low power consumption and flexibility of the programmed devices in conjunction with enhanced functionality compared with top class analog instruments makes the proposed technique an excellent choice for wide-range portable dosimeter instruments.