Radiation Tolerance of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Components Deployed in an Underground Nuclear Decommissioning Embedded System

Robotics and embedded systems are increasingly used and deployed in harsh environments such as nuclear decommissioning and radioactive waste handling. Development of new, low-cost, robotic solutions, requires commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components to survive radioactive exposure. Understanding the response of these components to γ-radiation is important for safe and reliable deployment. Power supply regulation and microcontrollers have been highlighted as sensitive to radiation and this study determines experimentally the characteristics of degradation for COTS voltage references, voltage regulators and a microcontroller. The findings lead to development of a discrete voltage regulator constructed with individual BJTs that exhibits increased radiation tolerance.

[1]  R. L. Pease,et al.  Comparison of ionizing-radiation-induced gain degradation in lateral, substrate, and vertical PNP BJTs , 1995 .

[2]  W.T. Holman,et al.  Total dose effects in a linear Voltage regulator , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science.

[3]  R. Pease,et al.  Comparative analysis of low dose-rate, accelerated, and standard cobalt-60 radiation response data for a low-dropout voltage regulator and a voltage reference , 2002, IEEE Radiation Effects Data Workshop.

[4]  Allan H. Johnston,et al.  Enhanced damage in bipolar devices at low dose rates: effects at very low dose rates , 1996 .

[5]  M.D. Berg,et al.  Compendium of Total Ionizing Dose Results and Displacement Damage Results for Candidate Spacecraft Electronics for NASA , 2006, 2006 IEEE Radiation Effects Data Workshop.

[6]  R. L. Pease,et al.  Trends in the total-dose response of modern bipolar transistors , 1992 .

[7]  Barry Lennox,et al.  Development of Irradiation Capabilities to Address the Challenges of the Nuclear Industry , 2015 .

[8]  C. Poivey,et al.  Compendium of Current Total Ionizing Dose Results and Displacement Damage Results for Candidate Spacecraft Electronics for NASA , 2007, 2007 IEEE Radiation Effects Data Workshop.

[9]  Stephen D Monk,et al.  An investigation towards real time dose rate monitoring, and fuel rod detection in a First Generation Magnox Storage Pond (FGMSP). , 2014, Applied radiation and isotopes : including data, instrumentation and methods for use in agriculture, industry and medicine.

[10]  R. Pease,et al.  Total Dose and Dose Rate Response of Low Dropout Voltage Regulators , 2006, 2006 IEEE Radiation Effects Data Workshop.