Development of a semi-autonomous directional and spectroscopic radiation detection mobile platform

This paper presents a method for a small, inexpensive mobile robot equipped with a single high resolution scintillation detector to quickly survey an area and convey information about local sources of gamma radiation to a remote human operator. This is achieved by surrounding the detector with a lead sheath that blocks all gamma-rays except those incident along the detector's axial direction. A 180° horizontal scan is performed by rotating the detector and a directional profile of gamma radiation is constructed. In addition, a 180° visual panorama of the local area is assembled using a camera mounted on the detector. A plot of the detector count rate versus angle is then overlaid on top of the visual panorama and visible peaks clearly indicate the direction of local gamma radiation sources. Measuring the energy spectrum of gamma-rays in each direction produces a 2D count frequency histogram where distinct peaks indicate the energy and direction of local gamma-ray sources allowing the identification of different radio-isotopes. The mobile robot can use the peaks as goal directions and autonomously move towards gamma-ray sources.