The Deterministic Environmental Radiation Intensity Survey-Simulator (DERISS)*

Environmental radiological surveys are preformed to assist sites contaminated with radioactive materials characterize and remediate residual radioactive materials hazardous to onsite individuals and the local ecosystem. Surveys are difficult to replicate, time-consuming, involve use of radiological material in the environment, and may expose the surveyor to hazardous ionizing radiation. There is a need to rapidly, reliably, and safely generate radiological survey data for the development and testing of enhanced background segregating algorithms used during post-survey data analysis and optimization of surveying parameters (survey velocity, detector spacing, sampling rate, etc.). This poster describes the Deterministic Environmental Radiation Intensity Survey-Simulator (DERISS). DERISS is a point-kernel based model developed to preform radiation exposure rate calculations within a simulated survey area. DERISS generated data sets will be used to assist in optimization of Institute for Clean Energy Technology (ICET) robotic survey system parameters, evaluation of post-survey analysis methods, and development of visualization tools. DERISS preforms these calculations by populating point-sources and point-detectors into a simulated survey area. The exposure rate is calculated at each point-detector's position using the aggregated exposure rate generated from each point-source with the detector-source distance known. Exposure rate intensity is proportional to the inverse square of these detector-source distances and is scaled by the source's activity, photon energies, properties of the detector, and attenuation effects. DERISS uses user-defined configuration files that describe survey parameters (survey-platform speed, path spacing, measurement frequency, etc.), environmental conditions, sources of radioisotopes, and radiation detectors to create simulated data sets mimicking data sets produced by ICET semi-autonomous radiological survey systems. Described in this paper is a technical description of DERISS functionality, generated results, and future efforts.