Aerial Radiological Monitoring System. Part 3: Electronic Processing of ARMS-II Data

摘要

A method of utilizing electronic data-processing techniques for the reduction and presentation of airborne terrestrial-radiation measurements is presented. The instrumentation used by the Aerial Radiological Measuring Survey (ARMS-II) was developed by Edgerton, Germeshausen & Grier, Inc. (EG&G), under sponsorship of the Division of Biology and Medicine, Civil Effects Test Operations, U. S. Atomic Energy Commission. Systematic surveys of terrestrial radiation occurring over large land areas are performed throughout the United States by EG&G personnel. A nominal-sized area entails some 10,000 traverse miles of flying with the acquisition of nearly 100,000 data points. As a consequence, manual reduction and presentation of the raw data are highly impractical. For rapid reduction and early availability of the data, it is necessary that modern electronic techniques be adapted to the processing of ARMS-II data. The system described utilizes the IBM- 704 electronic computer as the principal processing machine. Peripheral gear includes the following IBM equipment: 1401 computer, 407 lister, 047 tape-to-card converter, 523 summary punch, and 082 card sorter. An Electronics Associates, Inc., model 3200 Dataplotter with a 30- by 30-in. plotting surface is employed to present the finished data graphically. Data are recorded in flight as binary entries onto punched tape. The data on the field tapes and the ground measurements necessary for computation are sent to the ARMS-II laboratory and converted to IBM card formats for entry into the computer. The data are taken to the computer center and processed; the computer provides the output information as a decimal tabulation of the radiation levels and their associated geocentric coordinates and converts the data to coordinates that are compatible with the X-Y plotter input requirements.