Appendix F
Quiet-Bias Technology
The ion chamber brings reliability and versatility to the radiation protection industry and has been the gold standard for decades. Originally, Radcal developed a unique filter making ion chambers that were robust to electromagnetic interference.
Through a second major innovation, Radcal was able to provide high fidelity waveforms (time-dependent representations of the dose rate signal) as measured by the ion chamber. Visualization of the waveform provides unparalleled quality assurance and failure mode identification for today’s x-ray imaging systems.
Unfortunately, achieving the rapid time response necessary to produce useful waveforms compromised some of the electromagnetic interference robustness of prior instruments. In particular, triggering for very low dose rate measurements became challenging in the presence of high levels of electromagnetic noise. Special grounding accessories partially mitigated this effect, but were often inconvenient.
Radcal is excited to announce that research and development efforts have yielded a new ion chamber technology, the “Quiet Bias”. A specially designed electronic circuit filters the bias voltage supply eliminating noise that would have appeared in the output signal.
Quiet-Bias technology is now incorporated into the current generation of Accu-Gold+ Digitizers and Accu-Gold+ Touch systems. Additionally, it can be provided as a retrofit to any Accu-Gold+ instrument at no cost during regular service and calibration. Note: Quiet Bias is only compatible with the AccuGold+ family systems.
Quiet-Bias Technology eliminates the need to use grounding accessories and for this reason Radcal will discontinue the practice of sending grounding kits with each unit unless specifically requested.