RaDPhone is the system of portable spectrometers for gamma-ray detection and automatic isotope identification.
It uses mobile phone technology to analyze the data and to distribute the results to security personnel.
The RaDPhone unit consists of miniature detector module and mobile phone / data acquisition computer
with wireless communication.
This tool is dedicated for first responders, radiological monitoring teams, and security personnel.
• RaDPhone Schematic
The detector module detects gamma-ray source.
Scintillation crystal is coupled with small Photo Multiplier Tube or Avalanche Photo Diode. The detector is
biased by miniature high voltage power supply and a battery.
The Multi-Channel Analyzer card with on-board preamplifier and ADC converts analog signals to digital signals.
The MCA output represents two-dimensional array of the pulse-height distribution of detector signals.
The mobile phone unit controls the detector module. We used the Motorola MPx220 mobile phone,
Windows Mobile 2003 platform, as a powerful data acquisition computer. It runs data acquisition and analysis software.
The Microsoft eMbedded Visual C++ 4.0 is used for speed and efficient memory management;
Microsoft Bluetooth API is used to implement and control wireless communication.
The data from the MCA card is sent through the Bluetooth wireless channel (range of ~10 m)
or serial communication channel and stored in the mobile phone’s memory as the time-stamped file.
The RaDPhone analyzes the accumulated spectrum on real-time basis and returns
human-readable results to the screen reporting isotopic composition
of detected radiation source and also evaluations of the source strength.
It is programmed to mitigate or eliminate false alarms
from medical isotopes and naturally occurring radioactive sources,
and can be “trained” to indicate specific signatures of radiation sources like SNM.
Analysis is fully user-configurable with settings stored in phone’s system registry.
Results can be transmitted to a remote computer database through email
or SMS messaging along with picture file of the object under scrutiny to be analyzed by a remote subject matter expert.
The cell phone can be also supplied with GPS tracking system coupling
radiological information with geographical coordinates.
The remote computer system can display geographical map (city street map) together with radiological map.
Users of RaDPhone system can communicate between several cell phones directly using wireless channel,
and also through the central computer.
Each cell phone can control several detector modules if required
(for example, different scintillation crystals in each unit).
• RaDPhone system measured spectra and analysis results screenshots
• RaDPhone system application scenario
