Design, assembly and calibration of a microcontroller-based Geiger-Muller doserate meter

Abstract

This article explains the design, assembly and calibration of a basic Geiger-M uller dose rate meter. The detector was elaborated using a Texas Instruments MSP430 low-power microcontroller, auxiliary analog front-end and high voltage electronics, as well as a commercial Geiger-M¨ uller tube as the detector, which was calibrated to measure the ambient dose rate equivalent. The main objective of this research is to produce a high-quality and low-cost option for radiation detection in delicate environments, such as hospitals, and hazardous wastes storage centers. So that accidents regarding radiation can be prevented. At the end of the day, a functional prototype was built and tested, successfully demonstrating the proof of concept and surpassing expected performance and accuracy.