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Project Gatekeeper: An Entrance Control System Embedded Radiation Detection Capability for Security Applications

Threat assessments continue to conclude that terrorist groups and individuals as well as those wanting to cause harm to society have the ambition and increasing means to acquire unconventional weapons such as improvised nuclear explosive devices and radiological disposal devices. Such assessments ar...

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Autores principales: Martin, Peter G., Verbelen, Yannick, Sciama Bandel, Elia, Andrews, Mark, Scott, Thomas B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7285256/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32456140
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20102957
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author Martin, Peter G.
Verbelen, Yannick
Sciama Bandel, Elia
Andrews, Mark
Scott, Thomas B.
author_facet Martin, Peter G.
Verbelen, Yannick
Sciama Bandel, Elia
Andrews, Mark
Scott, Thomas B.
author_sort Martin, Peter G.
collection PubMed
description Threat assessments continue to conclude that terrorist groups and individuals as well as those wanting to cause harm to society have the ambition and increasing means to acquire unconventional weapons such as improvised nuclear explosive devices and radiological disposal devices. Such assessments are given credence by public statements of intent by such groups/persons, by reports of attempts to acquire radioactive material and by law enforcement actions which have interdicted, apprehended or prevented attempts to acquire such material. As a mechanism through which to identify radioactive materials being transported on an individual’s person, this work sought to develop a detection system that is of lower-cost, reduced form-factor and more covert than existing infrastructure, while maintaining adequate sensitivity and being retrofittable into an industry standard and widely utilised Gunnebo Speed Gate system. The system developed comprised an array of six off-set Geiger–Muller detectors positioned around the gate, alongside a single scintillator detector for spectroscopy, triggered by the systems inbuilt existing IR proximity sensor. This configuration served to not only reduce the cost for such a system but also allowed for source localisation and identification to be performed. Utilising the current setup, it was possible to detect a 1 µSv/h source carried into the Speed Gate in all test scenarios, alongside locating and spectrally analysing the material in a significant number.
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spelling pubmed-72852562020-06-17 Project Gatekeeper: An Entrance Control System Embedded Radiation Detection Capability for Security Applications Martin, Peter G. Verbelen, Yannick Sciama Bandel, Elia Andrews, Mark Scott, Thomas B. Sensors (Basel) Article Threat assessments continue to conclude that terrorist groups and individuals as well as those wanting to cause harm to society have the ambition and increasing means to acquire unconventional weapons such as improvised nuclear explosive devices and radiological disposal devices. Such assessments are given credence by public statements of intent by such groups/persons, by reports of attempts to acquire radioactive material and by law enforcement actions which have interdicted, apprehended or prevented attempts to acquire such material. As a mechanism through which to identify radioactive materials being transported on an individual’s person, this work sought to develop a detection system that is of lower-cost, reduced form-factor and more covert than existing infrastructure, while maintaining adequate sensitivity and being retrofittable into an industry standard and widely utilised Gunnebo Speed Gate system. The system developed comprised an array of six off-set Geiger–Muller detectors positioned around the gate, alongside a single scintillator detector for spectroscopy, triggered by the systems inbuilt existing IR proximity sensor. This configuration served to not only reduce the cost for such a system but also allowed for source localisation and identification to be performed. Utilising the current setup, it was possible to detect a 1 µSv/h source carried into the Speed Gate in all test scenarios, alongside locating and spectrally analysing the material in a significant number. MDPI 2020-05-23 /pmc/articles/PMC7285256/ /pubmed/32456140 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20102957 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Martin, Peter G.
Verbelen, Yannick
Sciama Bandel, Elia
Andrews, Mark
Scott, Thomas B.
Project Gatekeeper: An Entrance Control System Embedded Radiation Detection Capability for Security Applications
title Project Gatekeeper: An Entrance Control System Embedded Radiation Detection Capability for Security Applications
title_full Project Gatekeeper: An Entrance Control System Embedded Radiation Detection Capability for Security Applications
title_fullStr Project Gatekeeper: An Entrance Control System Embedded Radiation Detection Capability for Security Applications
title_full_unstemmed Project Gatekeeper: An Entrance Control System Embedded Radiation Detection Capability for Security Applications
title_short Project Gatekeeper: An Entrance Control System Embedded Radiation Detection Capability for Security Applications
title_sort project gatekeeper: an entrance control system embedded radiation detection capability for security applications
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7285256/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32456140
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20102957
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