Tracking Radioactive Sources In-Transit

Radioactive sources are used in the oil and gas industry to characterize wells providing critical data to exploit geological formations in pursuit of oil caches. These mobile radioactive sources are of sufficient curie quantities to be categorized as attractive sources for terrorist organizations. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has developed a system that monitors, records and reports the status of mobile radioactive sources using sensor-based, active RFID technology to track the source shields, calibration sources and verifiers. Learn how real-time status is communicated from the Master Control Unit through a telematics device (long-range communications) to the cloud, providing situational awareness to the base of operations center. In the event of an upset condition (lost or stolen source), an alarm is sent to the base of operation center for immediate notification of key personnel to the field condition.