Features

• Complete tool for in situ cartography, saving time, cost and dose
• Real-time acquisition and immediate display
• Two dimensional gamma mapping and dose range
• Dose rate estimation of hot spots
• Excellent spatial resolution for localization of gamma-ray emitters
• Perfect superimposition of gamma and visible images
• No scanning but a whole image in one shot
• No parallax
• Discrimination between ambient background and hot spot is less than 30 minutes
• High detection sensitivity better than 300 nGy/h (30 μRad/h) in less than 30 minutes to 10 Gy/h (1000 Rad/h)
• Designed for hot cell applications
• High level of portability
• Compact detection head
• Detection head easily protected against contamination and easily cleaned
• Use for long distance with less penalizing doses for workers (ALARA)
• Can be used in inaccessible contaminated areas
• Remote control and operation
• User-friendly software
• Emergency response tool

Description

Cartogam is a real-time portable gamma-ray imaging system that creates images of two different wavelengths of photons (visible and gamma) and superimposes them. This allows the user to locate gamma radiation arriving at the sensor. The Cartogam has been in production since 2000, and is used routinely in nuclear facilities all over the world, including nuclear power plants, research centers, fuel reprocessing plants, homeland security and D&D sites.

Cartogam integrates the latest enhancements in ‘opto-electronics’ which makes it the smallest and lightest gamma camera available, with identical visible and gamma optics with no parallax. The sealed-unit is designed for use in contaminated areas. Combined with GammaView, allows intuitive, very user-friendly software allow any non-expert operator to set up the instrument, then acquire and process the images within a few minutes.

Cartogam, is mainly designed for in situ gamma measurements to locate radioactivity at nuclear sites. When planning for maintenance or decommissioning operations, it can be used to provide radiation intensity maps of areas during normal operations, to evaluate radiological hot spot locations and to quickly locate positions of contaminated areas during incidents, accidents, emergency situations, or reactor outages.

Cartogam also supplies input for quantitative gamma spectroscopy measurements of radioactive waste or in situ radioactivity. Its remote operation capability allows for a significant reduction of human exposure complying with stringent ALARA principles.

Cartogam consists of a small detection head connected with a special cable to a Cartogam Box that contains acquisition boards. The Box is connected via a giga ethernet cable to a regular PC. The detection head has been specifically designed to take into account the harshest environmental constraints of operations within hot areas of nuclear sites. The Cartogam head is splash-proof and can be easily decontaminated, making it practical for use in contaminated areas. Cartogam is the perfect tool for real-time mapping of gamma emitting hot spots – it allows fast localization of radio nuclides within contaminated areas. Acquisition, image analysis and data storage are managed through GammaView software.

The detection head can be remotely adjusted via a Pan and Tilt or specific remote manipulator devices. The Cartogam Box to detection head distance can be up to 200 m (655 ft).

The Cartogam operation is very simple with GammaView software. Control of acquisition, analysis of scenes and data storage are particularly user-friendly and use a Windows® XP “Look and Feel” man-machine interface.

After selection of the acquisition mode (low or high counting rate) as well as the area to be mapped, the operator starts the automatic sequence of acquisitions.

At the end of the exposure time, Cartogam generates a composite image of the gamma mapping, superimposed on the visible image. The gamma image intensity is automatically adjusted to full scale.

The hot spots may also be evaluated in dose rate according to a user-defined nuclide or energy. The acquired raw data (composed of visible and gamma images, and other various parameters) are stored to ensure data integrity. Enhanced storage functions are available.

Cartogam typical applications

Major potential customers for Cartogam are:

• Health physics managers
• Radiological engineering
• Shielding designer
• Emergency planning
• Safety departments
• Post accident/homeland security