A Comparison of Adaptive and Template Matching Techniques for Radio-Isotope Identification

TL;DR

This paper compares adaptive and non-adaptive algorithms for radio-isotope identification using gamma-ray spectra, demonstrating that adaptive methods are more accurate and efficient in typical operational scenarios.

Contribution

It provides a systematic comparison showing the superior performance of adaptive algorithms over non-adaptive ones in isotope identification tasks.

Findings

Adaptive methods are more accurate.

Adaptive methods are more computationally efficient.

Performance tested across various dwell-times and source-detector distances.

Abstract

We compare and contrast the effectiveness of a set of adaptive and non-adaptive algorithms for isotope identification based on gamma-ray spectra. One dimensional energy spectra are simulated for a variety of dwell-times and source to detector distances in order to reflect conditions typically encountered in radiological emergency response and environmental monitoring applications. We find that adaptive methods are more accurate and computationally efficient than non-adaptive in cases of operational interest.