Article

A low-cost environmental radiation monitoring system implemented in Brazil

Institute of Radiation Protection and Dosimetry, 3773, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

^* Corresponding renato.renato.silva@ird.gov.br; fernando.razuck@ird.gov.br

Received: 1 August 2024
Accepted: 11 November 2024

Abstract

Nowadays, it is increasingly necessary to environmental radiation monitoring to ensure the protection of the population from nuclear or radiological accidents. In this sense, some countries have already implemented environmental monitoring networks. Despite this, Brazil not only has a radiological survey of the subsoil of its territory, but also only a small fraction of the urban environment has been monitored, not yet having a network of monitoring stations. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to present a system, already under development, which consists of an alternative form of monitoring environmental radiation, based on a device that can be installed in fleet vehicles, which travel routes according to their own operational needs, presenting itself as a low-cost system related to citizen science activities. In this case, the device itself is self-sufficient to take all the readings and send them via the mobile telephone network, depending only on energy provided by a battery. Each device is a mobile station composed of a Geiger counter, a temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure sensor, in addition to a microcontroller associated with a telephony chip and Global Positioning System (GPS). Today the system is in the calibration and adjustments phase, already having results of a preliminary study, in which more than 25,000 readings were collected accumulated in a period of about 15 days. The results, although preliminary and in need of adjustments in the filters and visualization on the map, demonstrate the applicability and full potential of the proposed system.