The present invention relates generally to an electronic exposure dose meter and a radiation handling operation management system employing the same. More particularly, the invention relates to an electronic exposure dose meter and a radiation handling operation management system mounting a transmission and reception equipment, such as a personal handy-phone system (PHS) on a personal or individual exposure dose meter, for utilizing personal positioning function of the PHS.
As prior art in radiation exposure management system, there is a management system employing an electronic exposure dose meter, implemented in nuclear power plant or the like. In such system, as reported in Fuji Jiho, Vol. 72, No. 6, pp 313-317 (1999), exposure information corrected through a door way gate to a radiation management zone is transmitted to an exposure management section. In practice, a dose meter is inserted into a gate in contact type, or non-contact communication is performed between the dose meter and the gate, for collection of exposure information. Then, the collected exposure information is transferred to the exposure management section.
On the other hand, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-261802, there is an exposure management system employing a personal or individual exposure dose meter mounting an IC card for careful exposure alarm management during radiation handling operation or collection of detailed exposure trend information.
All of these prior arts set exposure management values in the dose meter per se to generate alarm (buzzer) when there is a likelihood that the exposure amount exceed the exposure management values, to notify the condition to workers, for performing careful exposure management. An aggregating process of the exposure dose amount after radiation handling operation is performed by collecting exposure information through the gate at a time where the workers exit through the door way gate of the management zone.
On the other hand, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-334563 discloses an environmental radiation monitoring system for emergency including a plurality of mobile units performing radiation amount measurement and a parent station performing data processing at a side remote from the mobile units, GPS position detecting devices detecting installation position of respective mobile units and data transmission units for transmitting detected position data and measured radiation amount date to the parent station.
The conventional exposure management systems disclosed in Fuji Jiho, Vo. 72, No. 6, pp. 313-317 (1999) and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-261802 is mainly adapted to exposure management of individual holding the dose meter and is a system for real time management with a management value of individual set in the dose meter per se. Namely, these conventional exposure management systems cannot perform exposure management of particular group of a plurality of workers in real time. Many of radiation handling operations are typical to perform operation by a plurality of workers, such as several tens workers to require exposure management of overall workers. Hereinafter, this will be referred to as planned exposure dose management of operation. Namely, in the conventional management system, a problem is encountered in that total exposure amount management of overall operation can be done after at a time where the group of workers exit the management zone, namely at a time of passing through the door way gate. Also, for each individual worker, since there is no means for transmitting information from the management section, it has not been possible to provide instruction in case of emergency or in erroneous operation in real time. Also, since it has been impossible to collect information about each individual worker concerning to which site the worker enters, how long the worker stayed the side, through which route the worker reached the site. Thus, detailed radiation work analysis was not possible.
On the other hand, the environmental radiation monitoring system for emergency disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-334563 automatically measures an environmental radiation amount by transmitting detected position data and measured radiation amount data in wireless manner. However, no consideration has been given for collection of information about each individual worker concerning to which site the worker enters, how long the worker stayed the side, through which route the worker reached the site. Thus, detailed radiation work analysis was not possible.