{"about":{"site":"https://codewithpapers.app","non_affiliation":"Code with Papers and Syntology are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Papers with Code, Meta, or the pwc-archive mirror.","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","attribution":"https://codewithpapers.app/attribution","modified":"archive material modified by Syntology; see the attribution page"},"url":"/paper/opendosimeter-open-hardware-personal-x-ray","title":"OpenDosimeter: Open Hardware Personal X-ray Dosimeter","arxiv_id":"2409.09993","date":"2024-09-16","proceeding":null,"authors":["Norah Ger","Alice Ku","Jasmyn Lopez","N. Robert Bennett","Jia Wang","Grace Ateka","Enoch Anyenda","Matthias Rosezky","Pamela Kilavi","Adam S. Wang","Kian Shaker"],"abstract":"We present OpenDosimeter (www.opendosimeter.org), an open hardware solution for real-time personal X-ray dose monitoring based on a scintillation counter. Using an X-ray sensor assembly (LYSO + SiPM) on a custom board powered by a Raspberry Pi Pico, OpenDosimeter provides real-time feedback (1 Hz), data logging (10 hours), and battery-powered operation. One of the core innovations is that we calibrate the device using $^{241}$Am found in ionization smoke detectors. Specifically, we use the $\\gamma$-emissions to spectrally calibrate the dosimeter, then calculate the effective dose from X-ray exposure by compensating for the scintillator absorption efficiency and applying energy-to-dose coefficients derived from tabulated data in the ICRP 116 publication. We demonstrate that this transparent approach enables real-time dose rate readings with a linear response between 0.1-1000 $\\mu$Sv/h at $\\pm$25% accuracy, tested for energies up to 120 keV. The maximum dose rate readings are limited by pile-up effects when approaching count rate saturation ($\\sim$77 kcps at $\\sim$13 $\\mu$s average pulse processing time). The total component cost for making an OpenDosimeter is <\\$100, which, combined with its open design (both hardware and software), enables cost-effective local reproducibility on a global scale. Through a student workshop, we also demonstrate its effectiveness as an educational and capacity-building tool. This paper complements the open-source documentation by explaining the underlying technology, the algorithm for dose calculation, and areas for future improvement.","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.09993v2","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2409.09993v2.pdf","source":{"archive":"pwc-archive (Hugging Face), CC BY-SA 4.0","snapshot":"2025-07-28","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","row_kind":"links_only","authors_date_abstract":"arXiv metadata, CC0 1.0 (https://info.arxiv.org/help/license), from the Kaggle arXiv metadata snapshot of 2026-09-12"},"code_links":[{"paper_slug":"opendosimeter-open-hardware-personal-x-ray","repo_url":"https://github.com/opendosimeter/opendosimeter","is_official":1,"mentioned_in_paper":1,"mentioned_in_github":1,"framework":"none","reach":null}],"tasks":[],"methods":[],"datasets_introduced":[],"methods_introduced":[],"results":[],"syntology":{"atlas_url":null,"mcp":null,"developers":"https://syntology.ai/developers"},"arxiv_metadata":null,"syntology_extracted_results":null}