Patent ID: 9239404
Filing Date: 2016-01-19
CPC Classification: G01N,G01T,G01V

Claim Text:
1. A device for conducting continuous radiological and nuclear monitoring of a flow of persons, vehicles, containers or packets to thereby prevent risks related to illegal transport of radioactive and nuclear materials, and to detect and identify, at a site in real time, without any compulsory slowing-down point, a gamma radiation source present on a moving carrier, said device comprising: at least one radiation detector comprising at least one sodium iodide crystal selected for its detection volume, said at least one radiation detector operable to deliver a signal proportional to detected gamma radiation, at least one spectrometer coupled to the at least one radiation detector and operable to sample and shape the delivered proportional signal and generate a raw spectrum therefrom, an acquisition and processing unit coupled to the at least one spectrometer and including a processor operable to analyse the raw spectrum from the at least one spectrometer automatically and in real time, a system for taking pictures coupled to the acquisition and processing unit, and a link for transmitting analysis results from the acquisition and processing unit to a remote monitoring station, wherein said analysing by the processor includes: smoothing the raw spectrum to obtain a filtered spectrum, calculating a reference spectrum representing ambient radioactivity in the form of local background noise of the site, subtracting the reference spectrum from the filtered spectrum, searching for total absorption peaks in the subtracted and filtered spectrum, and performing a first validation of the detection of the total absorption peaks, estimating and subtracting the background under the validated total absorption peaks of the raw spectrum, calculating the characteristics of the total absorption peaks in the background subtracted raw spectrum and performing a second validation of the detection of the total absorption peaks, comparing energies of the detected and validated total absorption peaks with energies given in a table of radionuclides to thereby identify radionuclides of the gamma radiation source, categorizing the identified radionuclides in order to determine whether the gamma radiation source is a threat, and if the gamma radiation source is determined to be a threat: