Wireless IoT in Particle Accelerators: A Proof of Concept with the IoT Radiation Monitor at CERN

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an ecosystem of web-enabled "smart devices" that integrates sensors and communication hardware to collect, send and act on data acquired from the surrounding environment. Use of the IoT in particle accelerators is not new, with accelerator systems long having been connected to the network to retrieve, send and analyse data. What has been missing is the IoT concept of "smart devices" and above all wireless connectivity. We report here on the advantages of using a particular IoT technology, LoRa, for the deployment of wireless radiation monitors within the CERN particle accelerator complex. IoT Radiation Monitors have been developed as a result of growing demand for radiation measurements where standard infrastructure is not available. As a radiation-tolerant device, the IoT Radiation Monitor is a powerful "eye" for observing the real-time radiation levels in the CERN accelerators. We describe here the technologies used for the project and the various advantages their deployment offers in a particle accelerator environment. This opens up the possibility for the deployment of heterogeneous implementations that would otherwise have been impractical.