Canberra Industries: A Leading Provider of Nuclear Instrumentation

Founded in 1965 and based in Meriden, Connecticut, Canberra is a unit of Areva – a French multinational group specializing in nuclear and renewable energy. The company maintains facilities in Meriden and Concord, Ontario which are both compliant with ISO 9001: 2008 standards. Canberra manufactures an extensive library of products for multiple uses across industries. Specializing in radiation devices, Canberra produces products for the following end markets: fuel cycle (including devices for measurement of uranium, plutonium, actinides, and transuranic wastes), nuclear power (including monitors of ALARA radiation exposure levels to personnel and environmental radiological conditions), environmental and radiochemistry laboratories, military, nuclear security and safeguards (for fixed, mobile, or portable detectors), and research and education (for use in materials analysis or physics and space studies). Trusted for critical and hazardous operations, the company’s products are used in extreme environments such as nuclear facilities and outer space. Composed of a stack of silicon detectors and a cesium iodide crystal which detect both direct and secondary high-energy radiation, Canberra’s light-weight Radiation Assessment Detector was one of ten scientific instruments carried to the surface of Mars on NASA’s Curiosity rover. The company has a longstanding relationship with the military community, providing radiation hardened products for safety, health physics, and security applications for over 25 years. Through its product line of military specific radiation measurement solutions, RadGuard™, the company has been servicing clients worldwide including the US Department of Defense, UK Ministry of Defense, Canadian Department of National Defense, Swedish Armed Forces, Danish Navy, Taiwan Army, and many others. Canberra offers a variety of systems for a number of environments. Their NASRAMS product, compliant with MIL-STD-810, is a real-time, continuous monitoring system for shipboard vessels which detects immediate and residual gamma radiation and prompt neutron radiation. The company also offers a line of ruggedized products that sustain themselves from vehicle power for use on drones, manned vehicles, robotics, and more. The company offers a range of portables for tactical military use including handheld meters such as the RDS-100 which contains optional x-ray probes and vehicle mounts as well as probes for beta-gamma, alpha, and beta radiation. The RDS-100 is MIL-STD-180 compliant and contains a Radiac Meter equipped with SMART technology (for immediate probe interchangeability).

Canberra also produces a remote gamma sensor, the RGR-100, which can be remotely controlled by a computer to supply a gamma and neutron dose. The RGR-100’s circuit protection is nuclear and electromagnetic pulse-hardened and the device can deliver -1 to 999 cGy total dose. In October of 2014, the company received a contract worth approximately $2 million with the United States Naval Sea Systems Command for instruments and laboratory equipment for APD Shore.