Hello,

I am building a cubesat that will be launched aboard a rocket, inside a locker in the pressurized crew capsule. One of the onboard experiments calls for radiation level sensing. I see that the Pocket Geiger Type 5 (SEN-14209) needs to remain still, otherwise it will give false readings. The cubesat will be experiencing high levels of vibration, acceleration, deceleration, and freefall throughout the flight. Is there any way to differentiate the noise from genuine radiation readings?

Once the rocket engines shutdown, and the capsule disconnects, there will be moments of weightlessness and free-fall. Do you think that the sensor will be able to pick up usable readings during this period? It will be approximately 300km in altitude at its apogee, and outside the atmosphere, so hopefully vibrations will be minimal for a little while.

We also do high altitude glider experiments and regular high altitude balloon flights carrying cubesats up to 33km in which the sensors will undergo vibration, acceleration, deceleration, and free-fall. We use Arduino for all of these experiments, as they are cheap and accessible for teachers and their students. The Pocket Geiger Type 5 would be perfect for our experiments, as it is small and light-weight. I just need to figure out a way to overcome the vibration issue.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

They call it a Geiger sensor but it is not a Geiger-Mueller tube.
It is a First Sensor X100-7 PIN photodiode.

Radiation detectors generally operate in pulse mode. For high count rates it may not be possible to detect individual events and you have to resort to integral or current mode.

I don't know if or why the PIN photodiode would be sensitive to vibration.
We should soon find out because we have a team here about to launch a similar cubesat experiment.
A second experiment is being launched on a high altitude balloon.

 

They call it a Geiger sensor but it is not a Geiger-Mueller tube.
It is a First Sensor X100-7 PIN photodiode.

Radiation detectors generally operate in pulse mode. For high count rates it may not be possible to detect individual events and you have to resort to integral or current mode.

I don't know if or why the PIN photodiode would be sensitive to vibration.
We should soon find out because we have a team here about to launch a similar cubesat experiment.
A second experiment is being launched on a high altitude balloon.

I am in touch with the founder of the company that designed this particular PIN diode sensor. He said, "The pocket geiger contains a vibration suppression circuit. It is effective against pulsed sporadic large vibrations. For example, car vibrations. However, if there is a steady or constant vibration, such as a vibrator, the suppression circuit is always active, so the radiation measurement cannot be made."

In the attached sketch, you can see that the sensors use noise pins, and will provide a message when vibrations are sensed on those pins. It seems like the noise pins may block out readings from the sensor pins during the liftoff portion of the flight, while the engines are on. My hope is that during weightlessness and free-especially outside the atmosphere, there will be minimal amounts of vibration, and the sensors will be able to collect readings.