A remote radiation imaging system comprising a lightweight Compton camera and a multicopter drone was developed to remotely and quickly measure radioactive contamination inside the buildings of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS). The drone system is used for measuring detailed radiation distributions in narrow areas, which have been difficult to gauge with conventional aircraft monitoring using helicopters. A measurement of radiation distributions in outdoor environments in the coastal areas of Fukushima, Japan, was performed. The drone system with the Compton camera succeeded in remote observations of dense hotspots from the sky over a contaminated area near the FDNPS. The time required for image reconstruction is approximately 550 s in the case of a 9-m flight altitude for the hotspots with a surface dose rate of several tens of µSv/h. This drone system will be used inside the buildings of the FDNPS for remote measurement of radioactive contamination.
A: The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS), operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc., went into meltdown after the large tsunami caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011. Very large amounts of radionuclides were released from the damaged plant. Radiation distribution measurements inside FDNPS buildings are indispensable to execute decommissioning tasks in the reactor buildings. We have developed a compact Compton camera to measure the distribution of radioactive contamination inside the FDNPS buildings threedimensionally (3D). The total weight of the Compton camera is lower than 1.0 kg. The gamma-ray sensor of the Compton camera employs Ce-doped GAGG (Gd 3 Al 2 Ga 3 O 12 ) scintillators coupled with a multi-pixel photon counter. Angular correction of the detection efficiency of the Compton camera was conducted. Moreover, we developed a 3D back-projection method using the multi-angle data measured with the Compton camera. We successfully observed 3D radiation images resulting from the two 137 Cs radioactive sources, and the image of the 9.2 MBq source appeared stronger than that of the 2.7 MBq source.
A: The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS), operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc., went into meltdown after the occurrence of a large tsunami caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011. The radiation distribution measurements inside the FDNPS buildings are indispensable to execute decommissioning tasks in the reactor buildings. We have developed a three-dimensional (3D) image reconstruction method for radioactive substances using a compact Compton camera. Moreover, we succeeded in visually recognizing the position of radioactive substances in real space by the integration of 3D radiation images and the 3D photo-model created using photogrammetry.
The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS), operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc., suffered a meltdown after a large tsunami caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011. The measurement of radiation distribution inside FDNPS buildings is indispensable for executing appropriate decommissioning tasks in the reactor's buildings. In addition, it is extremely important to accurately predict the location of radioactive contamination beforehand because the working time is limited owing to radiation exposure to workers. In this paper, a simple virtual reality (VR) system that can detect radioactive substances in virtual space has been developed to simulate real working environments. A three-dimensional (3D) photo-based model of the real working environment, including an image of the radioactive substance, was imported into the virtual space of the VR system. The developed VR system can be accessed using a smartphone and a cardboard goggle. The VR system is expected to be useful for preliminary training of workers and for recognizing radioactive hotspots during decommissioning of the work environment.
We developed a lightweight compact Compton camera to measure the distribution of radioactive contamination inside the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. We conducted performance evaluation tests in the coastal area of Fukushima, Japan, using the camera, which employs a cerium (Ce)-doped GAGG (Gd3Al2Ga3O12) scintillator coupled with a multipixel photon counter. The camera can clearly visualize spreading of radioactivity along the ground surface. In addition, we performed three-dimensional image reconstruction of the distribution of radioactive contamination using the multi-angle data obtained with the Compton camera. We succeeded in obtaining a three-dimensional image of radioactive contamination in the outdoor area.
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