GEODOS01B - Stand alone ionizing radiation monitor

Open-source scintillation detector of ionizing radiation. The device can be further modified according to specific requirements. Character of its construction makes it especially suitable for placement into mountaints for in-field measurements

If you need a fully automatic ionising radiation dosimeter-spectrometer device (with an internal logging and a backup power supply) or device designed for outdoor use without the possibility of connecting to power supply and data network GEODOS01 might be a better option. We can help you in choosing the most suitable device or even design and develop a new one according to you requirements. In either case, reach us using email support@ust.cz.

Locations

GEODOS devices are mounted on multiple significant locations around Europe at this moment.

Chernobyl Red Forest

One GEODOS device is installed in Chernobyl Red Forest site.

Šumava mountains

GEODOS devices are installed on multiple locations in Šumava. For example example at Polednik watch tower.

Kosetice Atmospheric Tower

The National Atmospheric Observatory Košetice (NAOK) was established by the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute as a department specialized in long-term air quality monitoring and research at the background scale in 1988. The GEODOS is located here by CRREAT project.

Technical parameters

Detection element: scintillation crystal NaI(Tl) 14 mm in diameter, 20 mm in length, integrated with SiPM detector
Power source: solar panel
Backup power source: LTO cells
Data memory: SD card
Record’s content: energy and time of each event above the specified energy (1MeV by default)
Record’s periodicity: 10 s (maximal dead time 2 s)
Time resolution: 20 us
ADC Conversion time: 104 us
Dead time: 2 us
Accuracy of event’s time: 500 ns
Energy range: 0.3 to 18 MeV (deposited energy)
Resolution: 0.02 MeV
Open-source HW and SW
Device status indicator type: LED
Uniterrupted measurement campaign interval: 6 months for 2 GB SD card
LoRa connection to IoT network
Operational temperature range: -20°C to +35°C
Charging temperature range: -30°C to +50°C
Dimensions 254x180x111 mm enclosure TK PS 2518-11-o
Weather resistivity IP 33

Device block diagram

Sensor element

The core of the detector is a scintillation crystal with SiPM detector.

Data storage

The primary raw data is stored in SDcard's memory. The IoT network is used for telemetry data transfer, device monitoring (e.g. temperature, humidity, pressure, battery voltage etc.). We are regulary using the TTN, but the device could be configured for use with any IoT LoRa based network. For remote areas, mounting a IoT gateway in radio range of GEODOS instruments could also be a good option.

Messages

About message

As a second message, when turned on, a string is sent that uniquely identifies the device.

$DOS,GEODOS01B,L02,256,379276a,1290c00806a200914056a000a0000086

$DOS - is the first character of the message string
GEODOS01B - Name of the device. In this case, it is GEODOS
L02- FW version
256 - ADC offset
379276a - Hash of commit with this firmware
1290c00806a200914056a000a0000086 - Unique serial number of dosemeter instrument

Data message

The output data are in the form of textual NMEA-0183 like strings. There are the two main message types - Histogram message ($HIST) and events stream message ($HITS). Both of these messages could be combined in data output from the single device.

Histogram message

$HIST,8,118.15,960.09,4.06,2.33,394,803,0,3,30656,2401,1304,5,3,4,7,9,5,4,6,7,4,3,0,8,2,3,1,1,1,4,3

$HIST - Marking a message with spectrums
count - Message number since restart or power-up
time - Time in seconds from power-up
suppress -
dose - Number of detected particles
offset - ADC offset. Specifies the zero channel position.
energetic channels - All remaining values indicate a certain energy channel. From the smallest to the largest. The third value is 1st channel.

Events message

$HITS,20,916,84,2984,37,16386,38,30666,26,38530,48,43043,27,49257,100,53904,43,59650,32,65631,32,65802,46,68555,47,71124,53,73601,48,74179,59,77454,72,90563,30,98074,74,98901,124,99743,50

$HITS - Marking a message with individual events
hit count - Number of events captured from the last HITS message
time - Time in seconds from power-up
hit channel - Channel correspondind to the captured event

ODZ-UJF-AV-CR/GEODOS01