CCTV FOR RADIATION ENVIRONMENTS

The use of closed circuit television (CCTV) within radiation environments requires the system designer to have a thorough knowledge of the application environment and the electronic and optical components expected to survive within the environment. Of all the many ambient conditions to which CCTV components are exposed, from an air-conditioned office complex to 1,000 feet under the ocean, none is as demanding as the radiation encountered in the nuclear industrial field. Unhardened CCTV equipment can fail or degrade to the point of being useless when exposed to ionizing radiation doses of as little as 103 rads (Si) or to a neutron fluence of as little as 103 neutrons per square centimeter. [Rads (Si) stands for roentgens absorbed dose in silicon, while a fluence is defined as the time integral of neutron flux.] The applications for CCTV systems may require that each component within the systan withstand a total ionizing radiation dose of 108 rads or greater. The primary components of any CCTV system includes the camera electronics, image sensor (camera tube), and optics (camera lens). Anyone involved in the design or specification of CCTV systems for radiation environments must be knowledgeable about the effects radiation has on each of these primary components. The purpose of this paper is to present the ionizing radiation degradation effects and limits on the operating characteristics of the CCTV primary components, and to provide specification criterion for the system designer.