The ability to map and estimate the activity of radiological source distributions in unknown three-dimensional environments has applications in the prevention and response to radiological accidents or threats as well as the enforcement and verification of international nuclear non-proliferation agreements. Such a capability requires well-characterized detector response functions, accurate time-dependent detector position and orientation data, a digitized representation of the surrounding 3D environment, and appropriate image reconstruction and uncertainty quantification methods. We have previously demonstrated 3D mapping of gamma-ray emitters with free-moving detector systems on a relative intensity scale using a technique called Scene Data Fusion (SDF). Here we characterize the detector response of a multi-element gamma-ray imaging system using experimentally benchmarked Monte Carlo simulations and perform 3D mapping on an absolute intensity scale. We present experimental reconstruction results from hand-carried and airborne measurements with point-like and distributed sources in known configurations, demonstrating quantitative SDF in complex 3D environments.
@article{arxiv.2107.04080,
title = {Free-moving Quantitative Gamma-ray Imaging},
author = {Daniel Hellfeld and Mark S. Bandstra and Jayson R. Vavrek and Donald L. Gunter and Joseph C. Curtis and Marco Salathe and Ryan Pavlovsky and Victor Negut and Paul J. Barton and Joshua W. Cates and Brian J. Quiter and Reynold J. Cooper and Kai Vetter and Tenzing H. Y. Joshi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.04080},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
20 pages, 5 figures, 4 supplementary figures, published in Scientific Reports