Conceptual Design of the Rapidly Deployable Consequence Monitor

When a radiological dispersal event occurs (by accident or terrorism), emergency responders must gauge the hazards in the impacted area in order to manage the consequences of the event. Tracking the dispersal cloud, and decisions regarding site assessment, control, mitigation, containment, remediation, and monitoring, all depend on the accurate acquisition of dispersal data obtained in a rapid manner. Current methods to obtain this information are labor-intensive, slow, expensive, and risky. This paper describes a conceptual design for a rapidly deployable consequence monitor which maps and tracks the radiologically affected area, and which is being developed as part of the U.S.-RF Warhead Safety and Security Exchange (WSSX) Agreement. Sandia National Laboratories is the U.S. collaborator on this project. The consequence monitor system will consist of a number of small and self-contained sensor nodes, which will be easily placed or distributed in urban or rural field environments. The sensor nodes communicate data to a command point computer at a safe monitoring location. The paper further describes the system design ultimately based on radionuclide dispersion parameters, as well as the types of sensors and their functions, operational algorithms, possible scenarios, and various applications.