Wireless Wide Area Radiation Monitoring Network Using Internet of Things

The nuclear disaster in Fukushima motivated the need for the development of a wireless wide area radiation monitoring network that is capable of measuring and remotely displaying radiation level in the affected zones without the concomitant increase in exposure of radiation to the workers. This paper describes the development of such a system using a commercially available Geiger-Mueller (GM) counter that can be deployed in a radiation-infested area. The GM counter transmits radiation readings at a fixed interval wirelessly to a web interface which is then shared in real time to remote stations. The proposed system employs the Internet of Things (IoT) platform, ThingSpeak, as an interface for sharing the information via the Internet. The system is modular as such that the number of stations can be readily added. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed monitoring system is feasible for radiation monitoring.