A Fieldable-Prototype, Large-Area, Gamma-Ray Imager for Orphan Source Search

Ziock, Klaus P.; Fabris, L.; Carr, D.; Collins, J.; Cunningham, M.; Habte, Frezghi; Karnowski, Thomas P.; Marchant, W.

doi:10.1109/tns.2008.2006753

Cited by 25 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…In another, but more elaborate solution, [26] combined a detector array of gamma imagers [34] with stereo cameras to demonstrate a portal-less highway radiation monitoring system. The classical radiation portal monitors are associated with several limitations amongst which are included: interference with the flow of traffic as vehicles need to slow down at the portals; ease of evasion by smugglers because the portal location is always fixed; and susceptibility to background variation caused by shielding of the detectors as vehicles pass in front of them [26].…”

Section: Integration Of Radiological and Contextual Sensorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ground Penetrating Radar as a Contextual Sensor for Multi-Sensor Radiological Characterisation

Ukaegbu

Gamage

2017

Sensors

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Radioactive sources exist in environments or contexts that influence how they are detected and localised. For instance, the context of a moving source is different from a stationary source because of the effects of motion. The need to incorporate this contextual information in the radiation detection and localisation process has necessitated the integration of radiological and contextual sensors. The benefits of the successful integration of both types of sensors is well known and widely reported in fields such as medical imaging. However, the integration of both types of sensors has also led to innovative solutions to challenges in characterising radioactive sources in non-medical applications. This paper presents a review of such recent applications. It also identifies that these applications mostly use visual sensors as contextual sensors for characterising radiation sources. However, visual sensors cannot retrieve contextual information about radioactive wastes located in opaque environments encountered at nuclear sites, e.g., underground contamination. Consequently, this paper also examines ground-penetrating radar (GPR) as a contextual sensor for characterising this category of wastes and proposes several ways of integrating data from GPR and radiological sensors. Finally, it demonstrates combined GPR and radiation imaging for three-dimensional localisation of contamination in underground pipes using radiation transport and GPR simulations.

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Section: Integration Of Radiological and Contextual Sensorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ground Penetrating Radar as a Contextual Sensor for Multi-Sensor Radiological Characterisation

Ukaegbu

Gamage

2017

Sensors

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“…In terrestrial searches for illicit radioactive materials, it has been shown that the use of radiation imaging can increase sensitivity by removing systematic background variations and reducing source confusion issues [3][4][5][6][7]. While radiation background levels are generally lower and less variable in maritime settings, they are still an issue in coastal waters, where many small ship-to-ship inspections occur.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motion correction for passive radiation imaging of small vessels in ship-to-ship inspections

Ziock

Boehnen

Ernst

et al. 2016

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A:

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Passive radiation detection remains one of the most acceptable means of ascertaining the presence of illicit nuclear materials. In maritime applications it is most effective against small to moderately sized vessels, where attenuation in the target vessel is of less concern. Unfortunately, imaging methods that can remove source confusion, localize a source, and avoid other systematic detection issues cannot be easily applied in ship-to-ship inspections because relative motion of the vessels blurs the results over many pixels, significantly reducing system sensitivity. This is particularly true for the smaller watercraft, where passive inspections are most valuable. We have developed a combined gamma-ray, stereo visible-light imaging system that addresses this problem. Data from the stereo imager are used to track the relative location and orientation of the target vessel in the field of view of a coded-aperture gamma-ray imager. Using this information, short-exposure gamma-ray images are projected onto the target vessel using simple tomographic backprojection techniques, revealing the location of any sources within the target. The complex autonomous tracking and image reconstruction system runs in real time on a 48-core workstation that deploys with the system.

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