Science and Technology of Nuclear Installations
Volume 2016, Article ID 9897675, 10 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/9897675
Development and Implementation of an RFID-Based Tunnel Access Monitoring System
1Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering, Tampere University of Technology, P.O. Box 692, 33101 Tampere, Finland
2Elcoplast Oy, Tykkitie 1, 36240 Kangasala, Finland
Received 8 June 2016; Revised 19 August 2016; Accepted 23 August 2016
Academic Editor: Eugenijus Ušpuras
Copyright © 2016 Kai Kordelin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Due to safety reasons, the exact number and location of people working in an underground tunnel need to be known all the time. This work introduces the development and implementation of an RFID-based access monitoring system for the ONKALO nuclear waste storage facility. This system was taken into use in 2010 and was systematically monitored for one year. The system principle and the used equipment are presented in this paper together with the reliability evaluation results of the implemented system. According to the field use evaluation of the ready system, the reading reliability at the end of the monitoring period was 100%. In addition, even after the successful monitoring period, the system has been updated and new features for safety improvement have been created based on fire department guidelines and achieved user experience. In the future, the RFID system has been planned to be used also in the final depositing of the used nuclear fuel and buffer materials.