Applications of autonomous rover for radiometric surveillance

Abstract

The concept of an autonomous rover system to perform maintenance, investigations, and data collection in remote or inaccessible locations has seen an increased demand recently. In this work, an autonomous rover is developed to detect radioactive contamination. The rover utilizes a gas tube radiation detector as an active sensing element and onboard modules to command and control the rover, such as a GNSS receiver, Autopilot controller, and a microcontroller as an onboard controller a communication module. The rover could be controlled by a human operator or autonomous control. In both cases, the operator would be far away from the scene. The rover has many potentially valuable applications, such as radiometric survey and mapping, locating survivors, or aiding in recovering victims after a CBRN disaster. This paper discusses the concept of operations and the design of the autonomous rover.