Localized navigation algorithm for radiation evasion at nuclear power plants

Often times, occupational workers at nuclear facilities receive radiation exposures well above acceptable levels to human health. Since radiation effects impart cumulative effects upon living organisms, it is commonly the case that the nuclear industry would set strategies/policies for their workers to avoid or work around irradiated areas to minimize exposure levels. Such policies are easily adhered to when the personnel involved can envisage radiation within the regime of their duties. Unfortunately, radiation is something that is not visible with the naked eye. To this point no radiation sensing system that can provide guidance to the occupational workers is in common use for lack of technology in this area. Currently, occupational workers rely on dosimeters that are worn by them throughout the duration of their duties at a nuclear facility or related workplace. These dosimeters provide radiation measurements only after the fact; in essence, these are record keeping values of cumulative radiation levels that a person gets exposed to. They, however, do not record where and when a person got exposed to radiation. Even when dosimeters provide measurements of instantaneous radiation levels, these, again, come into play only after the fact. In this paper, we propose a localized navigational guidance algorithm, based on an architecture proposed earlier, which is capable of monitoring and guiding the personnel involved as radiation events happen. This algorithm draws on graph coloring theory that links the sensory nodes within a network. It also draws on the power of localized routing theory to minimize on communication overheads and complexity of the device proposed and the underlying sensor network. We demonstrate the operation of this algorithm using simulation scenarios.