Abstract
We developed an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based radiation detection system that could measure radiation disasters in real-time from a remote location.This system consisted of three main modules. The first was small but high-performance gamma-ray detector module mounted on a drone. The second was a communication module responsible for data communication of drones with gamma detector and controllers. Finally, the monitoring module could provide convenience in operation by performing fusion of optical and gamma images and automatic energy histogram analysis.To evaluate performance of the developed small detector, when the distance between the source and the detector was 2 m, indoor and outdoor experiments were conducted to measure each resolution of 7 and 10 degrees, respectively. The indoor experiment confirmed that angular-resolution of 7 degrees came out for Cs-137 of 1 mCi. In this case, the FWHM was 2 pixels and the distance was 24 cm. The outdoor experiment by hovering a drone confirmed that angular-resolution of 10 degrees came out for Ba-133 of 250 μCi. In this case, the FWHM was 3 pixels and the distance was 35 cm. However, some radiation was detected in neighboring pixels of the detector because it tended to shake under the influence of wind during hovering.The goal of this study is to develop a radiation detection system using a drone equipped with a small gamma detector, and to develop a high-performance small gamma detector and monitoring application. As a result of the research, a small yet high-performance detector was developed using a Coded Aperture Collimator, and data transmission was successfully achieved using the drone's own communication system. In addition, intuitive and convenient monitoring is possible with automatic energy analysis and optical and gamma image fusion functions. In the future, we aim to develop a stable system by incorporating a homogeneous radiation source discrimination algorithm and advancing software.