Radiation Detection through Smartphones and Cameras

Global use of nuclear materials is expected to increase significantly. A large scale surveillance system will become a necessity in the coming days. This can be achieved with Smartphones, installed surveillance cameras and Early Warning Systems can be created against radiation threats. The CMOS camera found in many cell phones is sensitive to ionized electrons. Gamma rays penetrate into the phone and produce ionized electrons that are then detected by the camera. Thermal noise and other noise needs to be removed on the phone, which requires an algorithm that has relatively low memory and computational requirements. The fraction of groups of lit up pixels that are lines is correlated with the energy of the gamma rays [3]. This allows us to differentiate and characterise the image obtained for different sources.