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A comment on Boston Dynamics Spot Measured Background Radiation in Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Parent comment

Re:Boston Dynamics Spot Measured Background Radiation in Che... by Already__Taken on Sunday October 25, 2020 @08:09AM (#24885680)
They're describing running the computers 100's of meters away with fibre to the robot. But it won't help with motor encoders and sensors that all must be onboard.

Interesting idea though. To some degree is probably possible. No such thing as a rad hardened cmos though

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Re:Boston Dynamics Spot Measured Background Radiation in Che... by snypher on Sunday October 25, 2020 @05:09PM (#24889892)
I think the idea is to have a passive bundle of fiber at the far end with all your electronics in the safe zone, like a fiber optic endoscope.
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Re:Boston Dynamics Spot Measured Background Radiation in Che... by TheAdamAndChe on Sunday October 25, 2020 @08:56AM (#24885945)
Why couldn't the necessary electronics be shielded with a shroud of lead? It's not like these robots have lunar weight requirements.
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Re:Boston Dynamics Spot Measured Background Radiation in Che... by Baeocystin on Sunday October 25, 2020 @09:16PM (#24891864)
Spalling/scatter. In certain radiation environments, shielding makes things worse, as an energetic particle can cause a knock-on flood of even more damaging particles to be emitted if strikes an atom in the shield. Ultimately more mass does help, but we're talking meters-thick, not just another few cm.

The details are a lot more complicated than that. It's just worth keeping in mind that for any given radiation environment, there may be times when either more or less shielding would be a better choice, as counterintuitive as that may seem.

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