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

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.