A FIELD-DEPLOYABLE, AIRCRAFT-MOUNTED SENSOR FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL SURVEY OF RADIONUCLIDES

The Environmental Radionuclide Sensor System (ERSS)(3) is an extremely sensitive sensor, which has been cooperatively developed by Pacific N orthwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Special Technologies Laborator y (STL) for environmental surveys of radionuclides. The ERSS sensors f it in an airborne pod and include twenty High-Purity Germanium (HPGe) detectors for the high-resolution measurement of gamma-ray emitting ra dionuclides, twenty-four He-3 detectors for possible neutron measureme nts, and two video cameras for visual correlation. These aerial HPGe s ensors provide much better gamma-ray energy resolution than can be obt ained with NaI(TI) detectors. The associated electronics fit into thre e racks. The system can be powered by the 28 V DC electrical supply of typical aircraft or 120 V AC. The data acquisition hardware is contro lled by customized software and a real-time display is provided. Each gamma-ray event is time stamped and stored for later analysis. This pa per will present the physical design, discuss the software used to con trol the system, and provide some examples of its use.