A compact multiparameter acquisition system for radon concentration studies

A compact device suitable to acquire and display, at the same time, radon c oncentrations in a given atmosphere, and the environmental parameters chara cterising the atmosphere, is presented and described. It consists of two ma in blocks: (i) a detection section including a set of sensors for measuring pressure, humidity and temperature, and a set of silicon surface barrier d etectors mounted in electrostatic cells collecting the ionised radon daught ers; (ii) a single NIM module featuring an eight channel 12 bit ADC and the linear electronics to shape the signals from the silicon detectors. The sy stem is controlled by a computer via a RS232 port. The software, implemente d in Visual Basic, allows to display the energy distribution of the pulses coming from the alpha detectors and to initialise and control all phases of the acquisition. The results of preliminary tests show the high reliabilit y of the system. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights res erved.