Smart ionization chamber for gamma-ray monitoring

Abstract

A design and implementation of a smart ionization chamber suitable for connection into gamma radiation monitoring networks is presented in this paper. The smart ionization chamber consists of air-equivalent one liter ionization chamber with associated electronics and a built-in memory for storage of electronic data specifications. Generally, operating and measurement characteristics of the used ionization chamber are written into the memory chip attached to the chamber. A microcontroller-based data acquisition system with a mixed-mode interface has been implemented for the purpose of reading electronic data specifications from the memory chip, and for configuration and interfacing of the ionization chamber to the monitoring network using plug-and-play concept. The details of smart ionization chamber implementation and test results are included in the paper.