New monitoring system to detect a radioactive material in motion

Illegal radioactive material transportation detection, by terrorist for example, is problematic in urban public transportation. Academics and industrials systems include Radiation Portal Monitor (RPM) to detect radioactive matters transported in vehicles or carried by pedestrians. However, today's RPMs are not able to efficiently detect a radioactive material in movement. Due to count statistic and gamma background, false alarms may be triggered or at the contrary a radioactive material not detected. The statistical false alarm rate has to be as low as possible in order to limit useless intervention especially in urban mass transportation. The real-time approach depicted in this paper consists in using a time correlated detection technique in association with a sensor network. It is based on several low-cost and large area plastic scintillators and a digital signal processing designed for signal reconstruction from the sensor network. The number of sensors used in the network can be adapted to fit with applications requirements or cost. The reconstructed signal is improved by comparing other approaches. This allows us to increase the device speed that has to be scanned while decreasing the risk of false alarm. In the framework of a project called SECUR-ED Secured Urban Transportation - European Demonstration, this prototype system will be used during an experiment in the Milan urban mass transportation.