Software Architecture for Developing a Simulator for Environmental Radiation Monitoring System

Simulation software for the Environmental Radiation Monitoring System [1] was developed at NRCN for training purposes [2], the simulation process is based upon three main stages of work: Event Planning, Radiation Sampling, Station Simulation and Data Transmission.

The Event Planning stage deals with designing and setting the needed parameters for the simulation as a function of time - contamination leakage source, gamma rates, and wind parameters. The output is airborne contamination cloud maps. This stage is done, before starting the simulation, usually by an experienced command post personal.

The Radiation Sampling stage deals with sampling and processing the radiation field from the contamination cloud data, with regards to the time and location of the station. This stage produces the gamma field from the airborne contamination map.

The Station Simulation and Data Transmission stage deals with sending the processed data to the control center using the existing network and communications protocols. This stage simulates the behavior of one station in the Environmental Radiation Monitoring System.

In order to achieve the above stages, and implement them into the simulator software, the software was developed using the Object Oriented Programming (OOP) development approach, which improves software maintainability, allows faster development and produce high-quality software.

The designed software architecture is shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 illustrates the three main components of the simulator software:

• Server comm, handlers - manages the data requests from the control center (e.g., mobile station location).
• Station comm, handler - manages the simulated station response to the control center (e.g., radiation dose and rate).
• Event reader - utility that provides a way to read an event file and calculate radiation values as a function of time and location. The `x200` sign represents the maximum number of possible stations.

This architecture allows flexibility at the development and maintenance stages. This is largely because of the small amount of classes and utility methods, which enables code reusability and maintainability, and also because of the independence between the classes, which enables modularity.

The simulator operation is transparent to the system, its users, and the control center. The control center acts as if it is receiving the real stations data. This was achieved by fully mimicking the operation of the stations and implementing the complete communication protocol that is been used to pass data between the stations and the main control center. Moreover, the simulator is able to sample, process and transmit data of mobile stations (using cellular communication).

The developed simulator architecture allows the command post personal to train with the same system they will use in an actual event, design and test different emergency scenarios in an efficient and accurate manner.

References

[1] E. Vax, B. Sarusi, M. Sheinfeld, S. Levinson, I. Brandys, E. Marcus, A. Osovizky, Y. Kadmon and Y. Cohen, "An Integrated Approach For Multi-Purpose Fast Deployment Environmental Radiation Monitoring System", IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference record, p.912-913, Orlando, USA (2009).

[2] Y. Kadmon, E. Vax, B. Sarusi, D. Portnoy , A. Osovizky, T. Mazor and A. Broide , ״ Training System for Central Command Post Personal using Airborne Contamination Simulation", ETRAP, Valencia, Spain (2017).