Unmanned Aircraft Applications in Radiological Surveys

Unmanned vehicles, equipped with radiation detection sensors, can serve as a valuable aid to personnel responding to radiological incidents. The use of tele-operated ground vehicles avoids human exposure to hazardous environments, which in addition to radioactive contamination, might present other risks to personnel. Autonomous unmanned vehicles using algorithms for radioisotope classification, source localization, and efficient exploration allow these vehicles to conduct surveys with reduced human supervision allowing teams to address larger areas in less time. This work presents systems for autonomous radiation search with results presented in several proof-of-concept demonstrations.