Localization of Ionizing Radiation Sources by Cooperating Micro Aerial Vehicles With Pixel Detectors in Real-Time

Abstract

We provide a complex software package allowing the user to deploy multiple ionizing radiation sources and detectors modeled after the Timepix miniature pixel detector. The software is provided to the community as open-source, and allows preliminary testing and method development even without a pixel detector or radiation sources. Our simulation model utilizes ray-tracing and Monte Carlo methods to resolve interactions of ionizing radiation with the detector, obstacles and the atmosphere. An open-source implementation is provided as a plugin for Gazebo, a simulator popular within the robotics community. The plugin is capable of simulating radiation sources with activities in the order of GBq <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">11</sup> Bq (Becquerel) = 1 particle emission per second. in real-time with a conventional PC. We also provide a ROS interface, which allows full integration of the Timepix pixel detector into a robotic system. The credibility and the precision of the simulator plugin were confirmed via a real-world experiment with a micro aerial vehicle (MAV) equipped with a Timepix detector mapping the radiation intensity of an Am-241 sample. Finally, we present a method for cooperative localization of a source of ionizing radiation by a group of autonomous MAVs in an environment with obstacles.