A Project Report

On
PORTABLE RADIATION LEVEL MONITOR
Submitted to
Amity University Uttar Pradesh

In partial fulfilment of the requirements for award of the degree of

Bachelors of Technology
In
Electronics & Telecommunication
By
Divyanshu Sahu (A1607114004)
Under the guidance of
Dr. Sujata Pandey
Mr. Mukul Varshney
AMITY INSTITUTE OF TELECOM ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT
AMITY UNIVERSITY UTTAR PRADESH,
NOIDA (U.P.)

MAY - 2018
 DECLARATION

I, Divyanshu Sahu student of B.Tech (E&T) hereby declare that the project titled “Portable
Radiation Level Monitor” which is submitted by me to Amity Institute of Telecom Engineering
and Management, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Noida, in partial fulfillment of requirement
for the award of the degree of Bachelor of Technology in E&T ,has not been previously
formed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma or other similar title or recognition.

Noida

Date Name and signature of Student(s)

2
 CERTIFICATE

On the basis of declaration submitted by Divyanshu Sahu, student of B.Tech(E&T), I hereby

certify that the project titled “Portable Radiation Level Monitor” which is submitted to Amity
Institute of Telecom Engineering and Management, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Noida, in
partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the degree of Bachelor of Technology in
E&T, is an original contribution with existing knowledge and faithful record of work carried out
by him/them under my guidance and supervision.

To the best of my knowledge this work has not been submitted in part or full for any Degree or
Diploma to this University or elsewhere.

Noida
Date

(Guide)

Amity Institute of Telecom Engineering and

Management
Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Noida

3
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

To discover, analyse and to present something new to venture on an unknown path towards an
unexplored destination is an arduous adventure unless one gets a true torchbearer to show the way.
I express my sincere gratitude to Lt. General P.D. Bhargava, Director General, Amity University;
Col. R.K.Kapur, Head of the institution Amity Institute of Telecom Engineering and
Management and my guides Dr. Sujata Pandey and Prof. Mukul Varshney, Amity institute of
Telecom Engineering and Management, AUUP for their constant help and motivation which
helped us a lot in handling and understanding this project.

I owe so immensely to our family for their inspiration, constant motivation, support and loving
emotions throughout.

Last but not the least Thanks to one and all those who extended their willing help.

Name: Divyanshu Sahu

Enrollment no. A1607114004

Signature of the student …………………………..

Date:

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 ABSTRACT

In the last couple of decades, nuclear technology has seeped down in almost all the developed &
developing countries. Countries make use of Nuclear energy to support their economy &
strengthen their military power. This has given rise to annual radiation (gamma) dosage levels than
what it was in mid 90s. There is a drastic increment to the radiation level we humans are exposed
to in today’s world.

Radioactivity is a hot topic that is being researched upon. In 2012, when an earthquake that hit
Japan caused a nuclear leakage from a nuclear power plant in Fukurshima, hazardous radiation
risk control & communication took the driving seat. The need for coping up with such incidents
became a worthy topic for debates in the newsrooms & research in radiological laboratories. To
measure radiation, a vital component known as the Geiger counter is required. The Geiger counter
itself isn’t portable enough and requires large amount of power. The radiation level monitors
currently used aren’t portable nor affordable for the general public. So it was important to come
up with a device which can be taken anywhere easily to measure radiation and is cheap enough to
be bought by the general public. As all human lives are precious, a device which could measure
the presence of hazardous radiation and can also convey it to all the people living in the area under
radiation threat is the imminent need of the hour. Therefore, we came up with our model of
radiation level monitor.

Our device makes use of a j305 beta GM tube connected to a radiation sensor board in parallel
with an Arduino Uno. It is a battery powered device having a small LCD screen to display the
radiation level along with an alarm in the form of piezo buzzer. Wi-Fi, GPS & SD logger modules
are installed on the Arduino board. They help convey the reading directly on a web portal. General
public now have the ease to know that what radiation dosage level they are exposed to at a certain
geographical location. The device is capable enough to inform the concerned security task forces
in case it detects hazardous radiation levels. This device can provide valuable data for research
and can be used in incidents like nuclear leaks to effectively communicate & control hazardous
radiation risk.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Introduction 9
Chapter 2 Work carried out 11
2.1 Arduino Programming 12
2.2 Component Ordering & Testing 13
2.3 Calculation of Radiation 14
2.4 Choosing the Right Geiger tube 15
2.5 Complete Setup 16
Chapter 3 Risk Calculation & Budget Management 17
3.1 Risk Assessment 18
3.2 Budget Management 19
Chapter 4 Conclusion and Future Work 20
4.1 Conclusion 21
4.2 Future Work 21
References 22
Appendix 23

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 LIST OF FIGURES

S No. Topics
1 TOP 30 countries using nuclear power
2 Arduino Board & Sensor Board
3 Measurement of radioactivity of Cesium 137
4 Measurement of radioactivity of Strontium 84
5 Geiger Tube
6 Complete hardware setup

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 Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

In today’s era, all the top 30 countries in the world use Nuclear energy for electricity generation
& to strengthen their military arsenal. With depleting natural resources & ineffective utilization
of current methods to generate power, mindset of top countries have shifted towards nuclear
technology. This has widened the sector of nuclear science & technology. With the profits being
doubled, the risk factor does come to play. The risk of a nuclear war or a nuclear leak. Humans
can be exposed to loss of life due to hazardous radiation that can affect them and their future
generations. The nuclear bomb dropped at Nagasaki resulted in killings of millions of people,
apart from that even today newborns exhibit disability because of the radiation in the atmosphere
which is still prevailing over there. Radiation hazards can spate anytime, therefore the task forces
and general public must be provided an equipment which can be an aid in radiation hazard risk
management & control.

Radiation Level monitoring became a hot topic from the time where they were giant ionization
chambers that contained noble gases. These chambers were able to measure radioactivity when
the beta & gamma particles interacted with the gases inside the chamber. They were so expensive
and immobile that they were just limited to testing in the laboratories itself. Ease of deployment
at radioactive area was not possible. Later came the Geiger counters, which measured the radiation
level by working on the same principle, yet were smaller in size. Costing and accuracy still was a
major issue with the counting system.

Radiation Detection & measurement will act as insurance cover for task forces/workers & people
who are habitant nearby a nuclear power plant during incidents of nuclear leaks. With growing tiff
between North Korea & US, Pakistan & India, one cannot rule out the possibility of a nuclear war
as well. In countries like India, state specific data for radiation level is also missing. With the use
of portable radiation level monitor, state specific data can be collected for research purposes.

The available technology/alternative for radiation level monitoring begun with the following
devices:

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  Ionization Chamber
 Proportional Counters
 Geiger Counters
 Semiconductor Detector

In today’s time, even after 7 years of Fukurshima Nuclear Leak, NGOs in Japan make use of
Geiger counters to measure the radiation levels in the city and find variable readings. Such is the
effect of hazardous radiation that it lasts for such a long period of time. There are various
fundamental usage of this growing technology:

 Protection of humans from loss of life & disabilities.

 Deepen the understanding of a certain geographical region.
 Collection of data useful for research.
 Effective Disaster Management.

As the growth of a country should not stop due to the risk of using nuclear energy, such devices
act as a boon to the government. Figure 1 depicts the growing nuclear share in the top 30 most
reliant countries on nuclear energy. This trend is on the rise for the developed & developing nations
around the world.

With France being the leader in the nuclear share, India on the other hand falls in the bracket of
below 10% nuclear share in generation of electricity. Our aim is that when this bracket increases,
we are equipped to tackle any mishap caused by the technology.

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 Figure 1

Apart from the risk caused by using of nuclear energy, disposal of nuclear waste from laboratories
is yet another problem faced by countries. Lately, there was a news in India of careless nuclear
waste being dumped. It resulted in loss of life and left the workers at the dumping ground with
serious disabilities. To counter such situations, a portable & inexpensive radiation level monitor is
the need of the hour.

With the help of growing technology, alerting masses of any such hazard will undoubtedly prevent
loss of life & be an aid to human health. Our project follows the same moto and can be effectively
utilized by the government.

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 Chapter 2
My Contribution in Project

Even though, there are new inventions & discoveries happening in the field of radiation every day,
there was no radiation level monitor which had similar portability and cost effectiveness.

Either they are bulky, immovable or are inaccurate & expensive. Most of the products in the market
were limited to task forces. Due to this fact, the general public wasn’t aware of the radiation dosage
they are exposed to. But our product eradicates this flaw as we have portal connectivity for the
readings measured by an individual. Hence, we came up with this idea where the device gets you
accurate reading in a limited budget. We see this device that largely contributes to radiation hazards
risk, control & management.

My approach towards the project is not only constructive but also counters the shortcoming of the
products available in the market at the moment. We make use of the Wi-Fi module to establish
connectivity to the web portal. Using languages like SQL, .NET to keep the portal up & going.
Arduino was chosen to work with these modules due to its compatibility and ease in coding.

The project consist of two parts, namely hardware and the software implementation. In the
hardware implementation, we have all the hardware modules soldered on the PCB to carry out
necessary actions like alert sound from the piezo buzzer, display of instantaneous values of
radiation count on the LCD screen, the LED bar glow according to the safe limits by ICRP, etc.
whereas in the software implementation, we have made a web portal communicating with the
sensor board using the Wi-Fi module extracting values from the SD logger which constantly
supply the readings recorded by the Geiger tube , instructing the Arduino to perform desired
actions.

2.1 Arduino Programming

To begin with the software implementation part, the Arduino programming, the code is written for
setting the threshold, configuring the LED indicators, getting the values in CPM, converting these
values from CPM to Micro Sieverts per hour, storing these values in SD Logger, GPS module for

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providing coordinates & the Wi-Fi module for communicating these values from the SD logger to
the web portal.

Flow Chart for the Arduino Program is given below:

Include the header files

SD.H, SPI.H &
LiquidCrystal.H

Define 5 Threshold
values for LED Bar

Define the
variables outside
the function block

Now, setup the number

of rows & columns in
the LCD

Initialize the SD card

using SD.begin()

Now in the loop() ,

setup the condition
for LED var setting

Put the formula to

convert CPM to 12
Micro Sieverts per
hour in loop()
 Write the files in
the SD logger

Initialize wifi
function
connectWifi()

Pass the values Wi-Fi then forwards the

from SD logger to values to the desired
Wifi location

2.2 Components Ordering & Testing

The components ordered in order to build the prototype were:
 Arduino Mega
 Geiger tube
 GPS Module
 SD LOGGER
 Wi-Fi Module
 Piezoelectric Buzzer
 LCD Screen
 Testing Source
The above components were ordered. Later these components were individually tested on the
bread board for any manufacturing defect.

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 Figure 2

2.3 Measurement of Radioactivity of Various Radioactive Substance

In AINST lab, various radioactive substance like Cesium & Strontium were given to us. We carried
out successful measurement of radiation emitted from these substances.

Figure 3

Figure 3 depicts the measurement of radioactivity of Cesium 137 and its stable isotopes.

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 Figure 4

2.4 Choosing the Right Geiger tube

A Geiger– Müller tube contains a tube stacked with a low-weight (~0.1 Atm) idle gas, for instance,
helium, neon or argon (typically neon), now and again in a Penning mix, and a characteristic vapor
or a halogen gas. The tube contains cathodes, between which there is a potential qualification of a
couple of hundred volts (~500V), yet no present spilling.

While ionizing radiation experiences the tube, a bit of the gas molecules are ionized, making
decidedly charged particles, and electrons. The strong electric field made by the tube's terminals
enlivens the particles towards the cathode and the electrons towards the anode. The molecule sets
increment sufficient essentialness to ionize also gas iotas through effects in travel, making a heavy
slide of charged particles. The dividers of the tube are either through or through metal or have their
inside surface secured with a transport to shape the cathode while the anode is a wire abandoning
the point of convergence of the tube.

This results in a short, outrageous beat of current which passes (or falls) from the negative anode
to the positive terminal and is evaluated or counted.

The Geiger tube we used is a J305Beta. Its pictorial description is given below:

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 Figure 5

There are various other types of Geiger tubes:

Model Alpha Beta Gamma Length Voltage Composition Cost

Detection Detection Detection of Tube Required
SBM 20 Not Possible Possible 100mm 400V Aluminum Low
Possible
SBM 21 Not Possible Possible 20mm 650V Aluminum Low
Possible
Si-1g Not Not Possible 50mm 440V Aluminum Low
Possible Possible
SBT-9 Not Possible Possible 73mm 380V Aluminum Low
Possible
Si-3bg Not Possible Possible 40mm 400V Aluminum Low
Possible
LND- Possible Possible Possible 40mm 500V Mica Medium
712
LND- Possible Possible Possible 40mm 500V Mica High
7124
LND- Possible Possible Possible 40mm 500V Mica High
7224
J408y Not Not Possible 220mm 420V Glass Low
Possible Possible
J305Beta Not Possible Possible 111mm 350V Glass Low
Possible

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 J306Beta Not Possible Possible 220mm 420V Glass Low
Possible

After analyzing all the Geiger tubes available in the market, we decided that the tube selected
would be J305 Beta because of its characteristics.

2.5 Complete Setup

Figure 6

As you can see in the figure 6, it depicts the complete setup used in making the portable radiation
level monitor. It consists of the following components:

 Battery
 GM Tube
 Piezo Buzzer

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 Arduino Mega
 SD logger
 GPS module
 Wi-Fi Module
 LCD
 LED Bar Indicators

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 Chapter 3
Risk Assessment & Budget Management

3.1 Risk Assessment

It was required to do the risk assessment prior to completion of the project to ease out problems in
product that may/may not arise in the future.

Risk Risk Level L/M/H Likelihood of Mitigation Strategy

Event

Project Size Project By making use of

L dimensions Hardware which are of
come out to be smaller dimensions like
larger than Nano UNO Arduino ,
expected Liion Battery, etc.

Cost may vary Try to find out

Cost M above the inexpensive alternatives to
approximated the required components.
cost calculated

Might get USB port (for charging it

Low Battery H discharged by using a mobile charger
when it is used which is easily available).
extensively.

Server Downtime L Real time Better Hosting Service to

updation might be opted in case of such
get affected. issue.

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3.2 Budget Management
Cost estimation is one of the most important parameter of any project. The budget utilized for
this prototype to be made & be fully functional is given below:

S.no Component Price(in Rs.)

1 GM tube 400
2 Arduino board 500
3 GPS module 800
4 LCD display 500
5 Battery 800
6 Vaseline Beds 900
7 Other Components 900
Total = 4700

Total Cost Came out to be Rs. 4700

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 Chapter 4

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

4.1 Conclusion

This radiation level monitoring device would enable a user to gather the radiation levels nearby
him or her with ease just by turning the device on. A portable radiation level monitoring device
with connectivity to a web portal was intended to work in the field of radiology, disaster
management & Internet of things. The designed radiation level monitor senses the radiation level
and immediately uploads it on the web portal with the help of the Wi-Fi module installed on it.
Whenever the device is exposed to higher levels of radioactivity, the piezo buzzer on the device
acts as an alarm. This alarm informs the user to refrain from the area or proceed to a shelter/safe
zone. Also, the web portal is provided with the latitudinal and longitudinal values of the device to
detect its exact geographical location with the help of a GPS module. The values obtained from
this device can be used for further research, publication, state specific data, etc. Data obtained can
also be used to determine the gamma dosage level experienced by a person living in the area, this
data can be a boon to radiologists. They can help diagnose health issues quickly if they have the
dosage levels a patient was exposed to throughout his life. The device is well calibrated with a
standard GM counting system, yet due to absence of a shield, the radiation levels do vary in a very
small fraction. We anticipate that if the problems mentioned previously are solved and the accuracy
is further more increased, the proposed system can be produced as a commercial product. The
product has feature that it can counter radiation hazard as whenever it senses radiation level above
the safe limit, it has a feature that it can inform the assigned authorities like an SOS service to
prevent loss of life and get the situation under control. Yet this feature is not completely working
because of lack of database having contact details of assigned authorities all over the world. But
as compared to the already existing radiation level monitor system, the device has successfully
overcome various factors of portability, accuracy, cost effectiveness and reach to all.

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 REFERENCES
 Leon F.Curtiss and Burrel W. Brown, “Miniature Geiger-Muller counter” Research Paper
RP1525. Part of Journal of Research of National Bureau of Standards, Volume 30, pp 25-
40, Feb 1943.
 Shiva, PNG, Nagiah, N,Ashok GV, and Karunakara N “Concentration of 226Ra, 232Th,
and 40K in the soils of Bangalore region, India”, pp 264-271, Health Phys, 2008.
 International Commission on Radiological Protection ICRP (Recommendations of ICRP),
ICRP 37, pp. 54-55, ICRP Publication 103, 2007.
 Noppadol Chadil Apirak Russameesawang Phongsak Keeratiwintakorn, “Real-Time
Tracking Management System Using GPS, GPRS and Google Earth”, pp 2-3, IEEE, June
2008.
 Land CE, Bouville A, Apostoaei I, Simon SL “Projected lifetime cancer risks from
exposure to regional radioactive fallout in the Marshall Islands”, pp 201–215, Health Phys,
2010.
 Nwankwo, L I; Akoshile, CO (2005a). Background Radiation study of Offa Industrial area
of Kwara State, Nigeria. J. App Sci. Environ. Management 9 (3): pp 95-98.
 Z. Petrusic, U. Jovanovic, V. Vuletic, I. Jovanovic and D. Mancic, “Validation of portable
monitoring system for measurement of natural background gamma radiation”, RAD2012
Conference Proceedings, pp 129-132, Nis, 2012.
 Ferid Shannoun, Maria Blettner, Heinz Schmidberger and Hajo Zeeb, “Radiation
Protection in Diagnostic Radiology”, pp 41-65, Dtsch Arztebl Int, 2008.

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