Due to the ever increasing use of radioactive materials in day to day living from the treatment of cancer patients and
irradiation of food for preservation to industrial radiography to check for defects in the welding of pipelines and
buildings there is a growing concern over the tracking and monitoring of these sources in transit prior to use as well as
the waste produced by such use. The prevention of lost sealed sources is important in reducing the environmental and
health risk posed by direct exposure, co-mingling in the metal recycling stream, use in contaminated consumer products,
and use in terrorist activities.
Northwest Nuclear, LLC (NWN) and the Applied Physics Institute (API) at Western Kentucky University have
developed a tracking technology using active radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. This system provides location
information by measuring the time of arrival of packets from a set of RFID tags to a set of location receivers. The
system can track and graphically display the location on maps, drawings or photographs of tagged items on any 802.11-
compliant device (PDAs, laptops, computers, WiFi telephones) situated both outside and inside structures. This
location information would be vital for tracking the location of high level radiological sources while in transit. RFID
technology would reduce the number of lost sources by tracking them from origination to destination. Special tags
which indicate tampering or sudden movement have also been developed.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.