Some results of the airborne high energy resolution gamma-spectrometry application for the research of the USSR European territory radioactive contamination in 1986 caused by the Chernobyl accident

Development of miniaturized HPGe spectrometers for unmanned aerial vehicles

“…Aerial gamma surveys at a distance have been widely applied in geology [1]- [4], as well as in the ecological monitoring and mapping of polluted territories [5]- [7] for decades. For example, airborne gamma spectrometers were used successfully to study the pollution by gamma radionuclides in the territory of the European USSR after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (1986)(1987), and to analyse the radioactive contamination of the territory of the Semipalatinsk test polygon (1989)(1990),1 and of the southern part of the islands of Novaya Zemlya (1995) in order to characterise the radiation situation after the end of nuclear weapons testing [8]- [10]. Gamma spectrometric devices for those studies were manufactured in the design for the laboratory applications and installed on specialized manned airplanes and helicopters to carry out complex surveys on vast territories.…”