Experts from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) are embarking on exciting new projects in collaboration with institutes in South Africa to work together to find solutions to a series of challenges in the fields of radiation detection and in the creation of beam line targets.
These initiatives are made possible by an International Science Partnership Fund (ISPF) grant from the UK government, reinforcing the joint commitment signed by both organisations in 2021.
Harnessing detector technology for a vast country
South Africa is five times the size of Britain at over 1.2 million square kilometres, with a population of over 63 million people. This means that there are large expanses where the population is widely scattered.
Because of this, drone technology has been widely adopted in the country for a variety of uses ranging from the inspection of power lines to blood transportation to rural communities.
Experts are now investigating a new generation of drone-mounted detectors which could address some of the country’s needs.
The country is dotted with uranium mines, often poorly mapped, and with mines comes a risk of radioactivity. A light-weight detector on a drone would be a risk-free way of mapping potential danger with minimal risk to the researchers involved.
A drone-mounted detector could also be used to detect radioactive pollutants in water sources and the local environs in remote areas or areas adjacent to large industrial works.
Getting drone detectors off the ground
A detector such as this needs a digitiser – an element which takes the data collected by the detector and sends it to be stored and analysed. Existing commercial digitisers with real-time data analysis capabilities, including the latest scientific algorithms and artificial intelligence are too big, too heavy and require too much power to work on a drone-sized set-up. This is where a team from STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory site and DASSIE (the Digital Acquisition Signal System for Innovative Experimentation) comes in. Our team of experts will design and build this crucial part of the detector with the focus being on a lightweight, small and affordable unit.
The project is being undertaken by skilled engineering and scientific experts. A team of four from STFC’s Nuclear Physics Group, led by Philippos Papadakis, includes electronics engineers working on the design and a software engineer working on the user interface. They are joined by two co-investigators in South Africa from NRF iThemba Laboratory for Accelerator Based Sciences (iThemba), a renowned scientific research centre.
The project had its kick-off meeting in December 2024 and the first milestone aim is to have a working prototype at Daresbury by the end of 2025 which can then be shipped to South Africa for field tests. By the end of the funding period in 2027, the final aim is to take learnings from that prototype to deliver several final units to the iThemba team for testing and operational use.
Target making training
The second scheme focuses on training South African counterparts in the design and production of targets for reaction studies.
When a particle accelerator sends a beam of particles at super-fast speed, they are used to hit something. This something is either another beam coming in the opposite direction or a target at a known and fixed position. The collisions produce reaction products, which are then measured by detectors surrounding the target position area. The measured energy, and emission angle of these reaction products help scientists to understand the properties of the beam or target particles which have been deflected and/or excited or the new particles produced in the collision process.
Solid targets are often very small and very thin items which need to be made and fitted with extreme care. STFC has a long pedigree in detector science and solid target production, so has received funding to engage in a knowledge exchange with scientists from iThemba. These scientists will visit Daresbury Laboratory to work with the nuclear physics team, led by Marc Labiche, and learn about best practice and technical skills which they can take back and use.
Each training period will last a couple of months, allowing the trainees to become fully immersed in the work and gain crucial hands-on experience and knowledge from STFC's experts.
Leadership and collaboration
These initiatives highlight the ongoing commitment to international collaboration and the advancement of scientific research, fostering stronger ties between the UK and South Africa. The ODA grant forms part of the Research Infrastructure Partnership Programme which is also funding five additional projects between STFC and NRF. They are amongst several partnership projects currently underway with South Africa.
A recent visit to STFC laboratories by the National Research Council of South Africa was an opportunity to share insights and expertise on a range of subjects including science campus infrastructure and large-scale data management.
Another 13 projects, some of which are in South Africa, were also recently announced as part of a £10.7 million funding package for the Africa-UK Physics Partnership led by STFC and the Institute of Physics.
Read more:
STFC announces funding for two flagship African partnerships
The DASSIE project
This article was originally written and posted on STFC's LinkedIn page.
