An urban environment simulation framework for evaluating novel distributed radiation detection architectures

Protection of large and complex urban areas from radiological threats may be improved by employing a network of distributed radiation detectors. Among the many considerations involved in designing such a system are detector type, concept of operations, methods to collect and extract meaningful information from multiple data sources, and cost. We have developed a realistic simulation environment as an efficient method for accurately evaluating a variety of sensor queuing/routing schemes, distributed system architectures, and data fusion algorithms. This tool enables us to assesses and demonstrate overall system performance as a function of key operational and cost parameters. Early results show that a network of 8 fixed path and 5 random path NaI sensors achieves a Pd ∼ 90% within 10 minutes against a 1 mCi Cs137 source released to 1500 possible random locations within the ∼1.3 km × 1 km area centered around Philadelphia City Hall.