Rad Alarm has one goal. To provide a cheap and scalable method to detect radiation without the need for external equipment. By providing a method that does not rely on external equipment, Rad Alarm can be deployed when it is needed most.
No Equipment
No need to buy a separate equipment. Rad Alarm uses your device memory as way to detect radiation by monitoring the change in it's electric charge.
Latest Technology
Rad Alarm uses the latest RISE detection techniques in order to quickly identify when you have entered an area with dangerous levels of radiation.
Discover Radiation
Rad Alarm is an incredibly inexpensive way to monitor for radiation. It alerts you to the unseen threat of radiation.
Take a look at Rad Alarm.
Radiation detection just at your finger tips seems like a dream. How can we do it with no additional equipment? The answer is by looking for the effects of radiation in your devices memory!
What Is Radiation?
Some atoms present in nature are unstable because they have too much internal energy. These unstable atoms are known as radioactive atoms. Radioactive atoms can undergo a spontaneous change into new atoms to get rid of this energy. This process is called radioactive decay. Of the four types of radioactive decay we humans are most concerned about Beta and Gamma decay. They are types of ionizing radiation.
Beta Decay
Beta decay produces fast moving electrons. They are capable of penetrating the human body and damage the cells inside your body.
Gamma Decay
Gamma decay produces high energy light. They are capable of penetrating through the human body causing extreme damage.
Ionizing Radiation Dangers.
When humans are exposed to radiation, the chance for cancer increases. This is because ionizing radiation can remove electrons orbiting an atom which is known as ionizing an atom. If the ionized atom is part of the DNA of a cell it can cause the cell to behave abnormally. If this abnormal behavior causes the cell to divide and form new cells uncontrollably the cell is considered cancerous.
Further Threats
While cancer is an issue with radiation, there is also potential for burns and death! Luckily the dose of radiation for that to occur requires millions to billions times more exposure.
Radiation Does Not Cause All Cancer
As cells age and divide errors present in DNA can accumulate causing cancer!
RISE Detection Algorithm.
Radiation can physically change the charge of an object. What also relies on the charge of an object is the ones and zeros that make up the data of your device. By monitoring your device for soft error (errors not caused by hardware defects), we can tell that something has happened to it. Once we eliminate other causes of errors, we are left with radiation induced soft errors (RISE). As the count of RISE increases we can then alert you that you are near a radioactive source.
Not An Absolute Measurement
RISE is not an accurate way to measure how much radiation you are receiving! It just measures if you are experiencing more radiation than an area you consider radiation free.
Research Ongoing
Soon we hope to accurately tell you how much radiation you are being exposed to! All the different phones and different cases, which act as shielding, makes this task hard.
Below are some frequently asked questions about Rad Alarm!
When ionizing radiation interacts with a material it changes the charge of said material. Electronic devices store and passes data as ones and zeros by storing charge in memory cells.
By using RISE detection methods one can monitor a devices internals for an unexpected change of the data stored in the memory cells. This unexpected change of state (soft error) can be used to alert the user that they have potentially entered a area containing radiation.
Radiation Induced Soft Errors (RISE) detection is a method to discover when an electronic device has been affected by radiation. By monitoring a device for soft errors (errors not caused by hardware defects) and eliminating other sources of errors one can assume the change was caused by radiation.
No. Soft errors caused by radiation has been documented since the 1950s in space and 1970s at sea level. It has been an important area of research in the semiconductor industry as circuits continually shrink in size.
See Radiation-induced soft errors in digital circuits -- A literature survey by Tino Heijmen. No. Rad Alarm only warns you when you enter an area with radiation. It does not measure the dose of radiation you are receiving.
We believe that in the future Rad Alarm will be able to measure absolute dose. However, extensive calibrations need to be done against the multitude of devices present in the market.
