This Phase II SBIR proposal introduces an innovative approach to highly accurate, long-term solar UVB radiation exposure record keeping. The basic approach is to develop a low cost UVB recorder system in the form of a small mail-able card assembly. This UVB monitor/recorder card will use a gallium-arsenide photodiode chip/filter, a battery, a microprocessor, and non-volatile data memory to log an individual's long-term exposure to UVB radiation. Envisioned card users include government or private corporation employees consistently exposed to sunlight during the workday; armed forces personnel, agricultural and construction workers, and recreation industry employees. In a manner similar to nuclear radiation exposure monitoring systems, users will wear the recorder card while on the job-site, and exchange it at regular intervals. The incoming cards are transferred in the mail, re-calibrated, and processed at a central archiving facility where data is concatenated to a form a history of each individual's total exposure. These long-term exposure records can be used to identify individual's at increased risk due to over-exposure conditions, and in doing so, avert the complex medical expensive legal procedures potentially resulting from such conditions. Proposed device operation is completely automated, and requires no user interaction to initiate data collection.
Manufacturing and agricultural businesses concerned about employee' health risks and the associated legal liability issues, can contract this long-term UVB monitoring as a service for a monthly fee. Other UVB monitoring system used include instrumentation for radiation experiments and other related research activities.
