2018 IEEE 4th Information Technology and Mechatronics Engineering Conference (ITOEC 2018)
Design of networked monitor system for
environmental radioactive aerosol
Ge Wang1,2* ,Hongkun Xu2,3 ,Zihan Huang2 ,Yin Yin2,3 ,Changli Mu2,3
1. Beijing Radiation Center
2. Beijing Research Center for Radiation application
3. Beijing Key Laboratory of Radiation Advanced Materials
Beijing, China
wsh_wg@163.com, xhk_auto@163.com, hzhan03@163.com, 554039209@qq.co m, 1003623799@qq.com
Abstract—This paper described a networked continuous
monitor system for environmental radioactive aerosol, which is
composed of some radioactive aerosol continuous monitor devices
and central management server. The monitor devices can be
remotely controlled by the central management server and
transmit the measured data to the central management server
through internet with the TCP/IP protocol in the system. This
system is used to continuous measure and monitor the content of
radioactive aerosol (uranium, plutonium and beta.), which is
harmful to human health after being inhaled by human body, in
the atmosphere. If the content of radioactive aerosol in the
surrounding environment exceeds the standard, the system will
give an alarm in time to remind people to take action as early as
possible. Because of the networked monitor system, people can
remote control the monitor devices and remote measure the
content of the radioactive aerosol, which can keep the surveyors
away from the potentially dangerous measurement sites and can
achieve 24 hours unattended continuous monitoring.
Keywords—neworked; real-time monitor; remote control;
radioactive aerosol
I. INT RODUCT ION
The radioactive material, wh ich is released during the
process of the nuclear industry production and test, use the
atmosphere as the carrier to form radioactive aerosol and
spread to the environment. Because of the ionization effect of
high and low concentration, easily charged particles, the
radioactive aerosol easily entered people’s body and it is
harmful for our health. Therefore, it has important significance
to study on the networked monitor system for radioactive
aerosol for keeping people away fro m the dangerous
environmental and protecting public health.
Today, there are several kinds of radioactive aerosol
monitor device [1-3], but most of them can only be a single
machine mode and couldn’t composed monitoring network. It
means that if the surveyors want to operate the radioactive
aerosol monitor device or get the result of the measurement
fro m the device, they must operate the device in person beside
the device, which is easily set up surveyors in dangerous high
concentration radioactive aerosol environment and the
monitoring efficiency is very low.
In recent years, with the development of the Internet, the
technique of the communication and data transmission through
Internet is widely used in our life, and which can bring more
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convenient to our life [4]. The Internet has the advantages of
simple use, convenient networking and reliable transmission
and so on. This paper will give out a kind of networked
monitor system of radioactive aerosol which the network
technique introduced into. The monitor system is composed of
radioactive aerosol monitor devices and the central
management server and communicate through the internet as a
media lin k. The monitor devices in the system have the able to
be controlled by the remote server and also can transmit the
data of the measurement to the remote server through the
internet, which can help the surveyors keep away fro m the
environment containing radioactive aerosols. Because of the
network function of the monitor device, we can set up the
monitor system by serval monitor devices placed in the
different measurement site and the central management server
to monitor the concentration of radioactive aerosols in many
areas at the same time, so as to improve the monitoring
efficiency. Therefore, the networked radioactive aerosol
monitor system has the positive significance to improve the
traditional radioactive aerosol monitor method.
II. OVERALL ST RUCT URE
A. Networking Structure of the System
The networked radioactive aerosol monitor system can be
divided into three parts: the monitor devices, remote
management server and network. The networked radioactive
aerosol monitor devices can be placed in the unattended
measured field to sample and measure the aerosol
concentration. We can choose some meas ured fields, where
have the potential for the high concentration of radioactive
aerosols, to monitor the radioactive aerosol in the at mosphere
with different monitor devices at the same time. The remote
management server can centralized manage and control all
monitor devices in the system. After the monitor device
managed by the central management server, the monitor
devices will transmit the measured data to the server, when the
devices completed the measurement and get the results
periodically. Then the central management server receives and
stores the measured data, and the operator can check the data
stored in the server and the status of the devices managed by
server. In addition, the operator can remotely control the
monitor devices managed by the server to start, stop and
transmit energy spectrum data in real time and so on. Therefore,
operator can use the server to get all information of the system
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and control every device in the system. The network is the road
for the information transmission and communication in the
system, so we use the internet which can easily and
conveniently connect the devices and the server of the system.
The monitor device can join the internet through 4G wireless,
Wi-Fi or wire network and use the TCP/IP protocol to transmit
data and communicate with others. The structure of the
networked radioactive aerosol monitor system is shown in the
Fig. 1.
Fire wall
Monitor device A1
TCP/IP
network
Net gate
Central management server
Monitor device B1
Router Access Point 1
Monitor device C1
Fig. 1. T he structure of the networked radioactive aerosol system
As the Fig. 1 shown, there are three methods to form the
measurement network of the monitor system, the monitor
devices A1…An join the internet through 4G wireless, the
monitor devices B1…Bn connect with the internet through
wire network and the monitor devices C1…Cn join the internet
through WiFi. We can choose the appropriate method for the
monitor devices to join the internet according to the situation of
the measurement sites. When the device connect with the
internet, the device begin to send TCP message to the
configured IP address in order to find the central management
server and get the reply message. Then the central management
server will validate and manage the monitor device after the
server received the request message. It means that the monitor
device join the monitor system successfully after the device
managed by the central management server and the operator
can remotely control the device and get the status and data
from the device through the central management server.
B. Communication in the System
The communication between all monitor devices and the
central management server in the radioactive aerosol monitor
system is based on TCP/IP protocol. After the monitor device
is started and connected to the Internet, the device first sends
the request message to the central management server. The
central management server will reply the request message to
the device after received the request message. Then the
management link between the monitor device and the central
management server is built. After the management link built,
the monitor device sends the authentication message to the
central management server, in order to be managed by the
central management server and join the monitor system. Once
the device authenticated, the server will manage the device, get
the information of the device and insert the device into the
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online device list. The interaction process of the monitor device
managed by the server is shown in Fig. 2.
Central
management Device start
server start
Socket listening
The device send the request message to build the management link
The central management server send message to reply the request
Build the management link
The device send the authentication message to join the monitor system
Device
Base station 1 Base station n
…… authenticating The server send message to reply the authentication message Managed by
the central
The device send the information of the device, such as device code, management
mac, ip address and so on, to the central server server
…… Insert the
information of the
Monitor device A2 Monitor device An new device into the
online device list
Switch 1
…… Switch n
……
Fig. 2. T he interaction process of the monitor device managed by the central
Monitor device Bn
Monitor device B2
management server
……
Access Point n
After the monitor device managed by the server, the device
can transmit the measured data to the server and can be
…… controlled by the server remotely through internet. The
Monitor device C2 Monitor device Cn
communication between the monitor device and server is
through message in the radioactive aerosol monitor system.
The command sent from the server to the device is packaged
into a fixed format message and the information sent from the
device to the server is also packaged into message with the
same format. A ll the message sent in the system are in the TLV
(title+length+value) format, as shown in the Fig. 3.
Fig. 3. T he message format of the radioactive aerosol monitor system
C. Software of the Monitor System
Fro m the structure of the radioactive aerosol monitor
system, we can know that the software of the system is mainly
divided into two parts: one is the field measurement and
control software running on the devices, the other is the
management software running on the central management
server. The software of the system uses the C/S (Client/Server)
architecture. The measurement and control software of the
devices is the Client-side in the system, and the management
software of the server is the Server-side in the system. Because
the monitor system is composed of monitor devices and
management server and the message is forwarded between
them, it is more suitable to adopt C/S architecture and can
ensure the security of the monitor system.
III. THE RADIOACT IVE AEROSOL MONIT OR DEVICE
A. The Structure of the Monitor Device
As shown in Fig. 4, the networked continuous radioactive
aerosol monitor device includes three parts, such as sampling
unit, measurement and control unit, processing and
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communication unit. In the process of the sampling, air is
sucked from inlet by the pump and goes through the filter
paper which can collect the radioactive aerosol in the air. Then
the motor 1 drives the upper unit of the sampling part raised,
and the motor 2 drives the filter paper fro m left to right,
electronic moving sensor detects the position of filter to make
sure the sample moves into measuring chamber. After the
sample moving into measuring chamber, the motor 1 drives the
upper unit down and the position sensor detects the position of
the upper unit to make sure the measuring chamber closed.
Then, when the pressure of the measuring chamber reach to
vacuum condition, the vacuum pump will stop and the PIPS
(Passivated Implanted Planar Silicon) detector begin to
measure the sample. In the measuring process, the vacuum
condition of the measuring chamber can reduce energy loss of
the alpha particle and improve the resolution of spectrum [5].
The PIPS detector measures alpha particles which released
fro m the filter and transmit the analog pulse signal to signal
preprocessing unit. In the signal preprocessing unit, after the
analog pulse signal amplified, A/D converted and spectrum
handled by the Multi-channel analyzer, the Multi-channel
analyzer can give out the measured alpha spectra and transmit
it to the industrial control computer through Ethernet.
Sampling Measuring & control
Position
Signal preprocessing unit
Analog-
Upper unit
Inlet
Sensor Amplifier digital
Motor 1 converter
Moving
Pallet
Filter
PIPS Sensor
Flowmeter Valve Drive &
Motor 2 feedback
Manometer
Air
pump
unit
Vacuum
pump
Fig. 4. T he structure of the monitor device
There are three jobs to be done by the industrial control
computer after receiving the measured alpha spectra from the
Multi-channel analyzer through Ethernet. The first job is to
compute and get the content of the environmental radiation by
reducing spectral noise, searching peek, fitting and revising the
spectrum data. The second job is to store and display the
spectrum data, content of the environmental radiation
computed and other data which is measured or computed in the
measuring process. The last job is to communicate with the
server through internet. The measured data and results are
transmitted to server and the command is received from server
by the industrial control computer.
B. The Software of the Monitor Device
The software of the monitor device is running on the
windows XP OS, and developed by the visual C++. According
to the function of software, it can be divided into three modules,
the module of control and sample, the module of compute and
store and the module of transmission and communication. The
software of the device has two threads, the main thread is used
to complete the task of the module of control and sample and
the module of compute and store, and the second thread is
specially used to transmit and receive data from internet.
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(1) Control and sample
This module is used to give out the control signal and drive
the mechanical components to complete the action of sampling
and measurement, including open/close the valve, put the upper
unit up/down, moves the filter paper, start/stop the vacuum
pump and the air pump and start/stop the measurement.
According to the clock signal and the state information
obtained by the sensor, the device performs the following
actions periodically ‘sampling-moving-measuring-calculating’.
Therefore this module transmit the control signal to the drive
unit, and the mechanical co mponents are driven to comp lete
the sampling and move the sample into the measuring chamber,
then the detector and the Multi-channel analyzer will be start to
measure the sample. After the Multi-channel analyzer gets the
spectrum of the measurement, it will transmit the spectrum to
the industrial control computer and then go to the next step.
(2) Computer and store
After the spectrum fro m the Multi-channel analyzer
obtained, this module will co mpute with the spectrum to get
the result of the measurement and store it. Therefore, this
module is the kernel of the monitor device. The process of the
compute the measured result is divided into two stage, fitting
Proccessing & communication
iteration stage and result calculation stage.
Multi-
Fitting iteration stage is mainly used to complete the energy
channel Compute to
get the
spectrum line fitting and peak searching. We use the Lorenz
analyzer
Ethernet
measured
result
function [6] to fitting of the energy spectrum data and search
Locally
the peak of the spectrum line, which is the fitting energy
Industrial
control
store and spectrum line, in order to compute the result of measurement
display the
RS485
computer
data more accurately [7].
Data
transmission The stage of result calculation uses energy discrimination
and command
receiver method [8] to get the result of the measurement. We only select
the counts of artificial radionuclides, such as uranium,
plutonium, beta, into the measurement system, and leave the
other energy signal out. Using Rn, Th progeny peak
compensation and function fitting method, we deduct the
counts of natural radionuclides in lower energy area wh ich
used for artificial radionuclide computing. We can get the
radioactive concentration of uranium, plutonium and beta in
the air at the same time, so it is very useful and convenient.
(3) Transmission and communication
This module is the key to build the networked radioactive
aerosol monitor system. Th is module mainly co mpletes
transmitting measured data and receiving command. The
monitor device is added to the monitor system and is managed
by the server through this module. The monitor devices
communicate with server or each other through this module. In
the software of the monitor device, there is a sub thread which
is used to periodically check that whether there is message to
transmit or receive when this thread is idle. Once there is
message to send out, the main thread will notify the sub thread.
When the sub thread get the notice fro m the main thread, it will
call the transmit function to send the message to the server or
other devices in the system through internet. Similarly, if there
is the command message or other message from the remote
management server or other devices in the system, the sub
thread will receive the message from the TCP port and send the
message to the main thread to handle accordingly.
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 IV. THE SOFT WARE OF T HE MANAGEMENT SERVER
The software of the central management server is running
on the windows server 2000 and above server OS, and
developed by the visual C++. This software is the brain of the
monitor system and the server manage all monitor devices in
the system through internet. Though this software, all monitor
devices in the system can be remote control and the server can
remote get the status and measurement data fro m the monitor
devices. This software consists of five functional modules,
such as the main control program, the list of the online devices,
data processing and storage, transmission and communication
and the operating interface, which are shown in the Fig. 5.
Operating interface
Data processing
online devices
List of the
and storage
Main control
program
Transmission and communication
Fig. 5. T he function module diagram of the server management software
A. The Main Control Program
As shown in the Fig. 4, this part is the core of the server
software. The main control program is responsible for the
overall scheduling of other modules to work together. The
interaction between other modules needs to be transferred
through this module. For example, if the part of operating
interface want to read the measurement data, the operating
interface need to send request to the main control program.
And then it get the measurement data from the part of data
processing and storage. The main control program will reply
the measurement data to the operating interface at last.
B. The List of the Online Devices
This list is used to record the current online devices
managed by the management server in the monitor system,
when the software is running. After a monitor device request to
the server and managed by the server, the main control
program will insert the informat ion (such as device name, ip
address, mac, the time of online and so on) of this device to
this list. In contrast, when a monitor device disconnect with the
server, the main control program will delete the device fro m
this list. This list should be kept dynamically updated on the
server to ensure that the online devices actually managed on
the server are synchronized with those in the system so that the
server can accurately manage all the monitoring devices in the
whole monitor system.
C. The Data Processing and Storage
The job of this module is that reassemble and sort the
measurement data received from the monitor devices and store
it to the database in a fixed format. A ll measurement data got
fro m the monitor devices in the monitor devices is stored and
managed by the central management server. When the other
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module want to access the measurement data, it must to firstly
request to the module of the main control program. Then the
main control program ask this module for accessing the
required data. At last, the request module access the required
data by the main control program. This ensures that only one
module of the main control program is responsible for
accessing the database at the same time, and guarantees the
security and uniqueness of the data.
D. Transmission and Communication
This module is used to connect to the network and
communicate with the monitor devices in the monitor system.
The commands and message from the server are packaged and
sent to the monitor devices in the system by this module. When
the message received by this module fro m the monitor network,
it will be parsed and sent to the main control program fo r
subsequent operations. The communication between the server
and the monitor devices mainly includes the establishment
message of the connection, the upload message of
measurement data, the transmission message of command and
the keep-alive message. The receiving and sending of these
messages are processed by this module.
E. The Operating Interface
This module is the window of human-machine interaction.
On the one hand, the software needs to display the
measurement location, the running status, real-time monitoring
data and various alarm information of each device in the
monitoring system to the operator through the operating
interface, so that the operator can get the running status and
monitoring information of the monitoring system in time; on
the other hand, the operating interface also needs to collect
various commands fro m the operator for the monitoring system
and send them to the corresponding device or module.
Fig. 6. T he master interface of the server management software
As shown in Fig. 6, the master interface is divided into four
parts. The upper left part shows the online devices in the
current monitor system with the structure of tree. The upper
right part shows the location of the monitor devices in the
system. The online and offline information of the devices in the
system is displayed in the low left part of the master interface.
At last, the low right part is the list of the online devices with
the device ID, running status, IP address of the device, alarm
and so on.
 V. EXPERIMENT AL AND CONCLUSION
In order to verify the validity and reliability of the
networked real-time monitor system of radioactive aerosol, we
selected five radioactive aerosol continuous monitor devices,
which were placed in five different measurement locations.
Two of the devices are selected to connect to the internet and
managed by the central management server by wired network.
One device is connected to the central management server by
4G network. The other two devices are connected to the server
by WiFi. A small-scale networked continuous monitor system
for radioactive aerosol is formed. Any device in the system can
be remotely controlled and the status or real-t ime spectrum also
can be got by the central management server. The Fig. 7 shows
the historical result of the test and the configuration parameters
of the remote device which is chosen by the operator.
Fig. 7. T he historical result of the test and the configuration parameters
As shown in the Fig. 7, the historical measurement results
of this device displayed on the top of interface. There are some
control button and all configuration parameters on this
interface. So we can remotely control the device, modify the
configuration parameters and view the real-time spectrum.
There are also the running status of the device and the
abnormal alarm (include the device operation abnormal alarm
and the over-limit alarm for the radionuclide concentration).
Fig. 8. Real-time spectrum of the remote device
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Fig. 8 give out the real-t ime spectrum of the remote device.
This function can help experienced supervisors to discover the
abnormal concentration of radionuclides in the environment in
time, so that air pollution accidents can be detected early and
emergency plans can be started in time.
The networked real-time monitoring system for radioactive
aerosols in environment described in this paper is suitable for
monitoring the concentration of radioactive aerosols in a wide
range of areas, dispersing measurement sites and real-time on-
line monitoring the environment. The system realizes that the
central management server remotely manages, remote real-time
monitor and remotely controls the radioactive aerosol monitor
devices in the system through internet. The system also truly
realizes that the measurement site is unattended for monitoring
the radioactive aerosol in the environment. Through this
system, the radioactive aerosol monitor devices dispersed in
various measurement sits can be managed and controlled by
the central management server, which improves the efficiency
of monitoring the concentration of radioactive aerosol in the
environment, reduces the labor intensity of the surveyors,
keeps people far away from the potential dangerous measuring
site and protects the people’s health.
A CKNOWLEDGMENT (Heading 5)
The authors would like to acknowledge the support of
youth backbone project of Beijing academy of science and
technology (201714).
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