Official dosimetry with personal electronic dosemeters--the framework in Germany

In Germany, personal electronic dosemeters (AEPDs) are presently applied mainly for operational radiation protection monitoring particularly in nuclear power engineering companies, large hospitals and research centres. This is done in addition to the official dosimetry of record. Therefore, frequently, double monitoring occurs-officially and operationally. A crucial advantage of AEPDs compared with passive dosemeters is the ability to adapt the monitoring period to the working time in controlled areas and to allow an immediate readout of the dose after leaving the controlled area, e.g. a job-related monitoring is possible by correlating the readout dose with the job performed. Germany started a general research project, consisting of two parts, for an optimised implementation of personal electronic dosemeters into official dosimetry. The use of AEPDs as official dosemeters depends on an approval by Federal and Federal State ('Länder') authorities as an official dosimetry system, which has to comply with special requirements ensuring that the legal requirements are fulfilled. The formulation of these special requirements is in the focus of part one of the research project, supervised by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) and performed by the Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) mbH. As a result of part one, a framework was developed which is the basis for a future technical implementation project. Part one is described in the paper, while part two is still to be initiated and will deal with the implementation and testing phase of the introduction of personal electronic dosemeters as official dosemeters.