Radioactive Contraband Detection: A Bayesian Approach

Radionuclide emissions from nuclear contraband challenge both detection and measurement technologies to capture and record each event. The development of a sequential Bayesian processor incorporating both the physics of gamma-ray emissions and the measurement of photon energies offers a physics-based approach to attack this challenging problem. It is shown that a "physics-based" structure can be used to develop an effective detection technique, but also motivates the implementation of this approach using particle filters to enhance and extract the required information. The resulting processor is applied to feasibility data obtained from a controlled proof-of-concept experiment.