# FUXYA2020: A Low-Cost Homemade Portable EDXRF Spectrometer for Cultural Heritage Applications
## 4 Conclusions  
The FUXYA project produced a compact and light prototype for a low-cost EDXRF portable spectrometer. The home-made solution allowed the costs of the X-ray tube and detector to be spread over a relatively long period of time; all the other components were cheap, and the software used for data analysis was free. The case and the structural components were 3D printed. The maximum dimensions were 295 \(\times\) 210 \(\times\) 76 mm\({}^{3}\).  
Figure 10: Loading plot for the first two PCs: cumulative variance is 61.2%; larger dots are the centroids for provenance groups.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Aloy**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Ag**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Au**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Cu**} \\ \cline{2-7}  & **Certified** & **Calculated** & **Certified** & **Calculated** & **Certified** & **Calculated** \\ \hline AgAuCu1 & 25 & 25.07 \(\pm\) 2.30 & 60 & 60.21 \(\pm\) 0.22 & 15 & 14.72 \(\pm\) 0.19 \\ AgAuCu3 & 10 & 8.96 \(\pm\) 1.45 & 80 & 80.79 \(\pm\) 0.52 & 10 & 10.25 \(\pm\) 0.17 \\ AgAuCu5 & - & - & 80 & 79.52 \(\pm\) 0.53 & 20 & 20.48 \(\pm\) 0.12 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 5: Results obtained for quantitative analysis on certified gold alloys for monochromatic incident radiation. Errors are calculated by AXIL/QXAS considering statistical errors on both peaks and background fitting.  
FUXYA2020 performance was tested both for qualitative and quantitative analyses, the former on pigments layers, and the latter on gold-based certified alloys, exploiting Axil-QXAS software for data elaboration. The classification of ancient ceramics based on multivariate analysis obtained through R environment was also carried out. Qualitative data on pigments have also been compared with the same data obtained by a commercial XRF spectrometer, demonstrating how our very simple and inexpensive device can be of great help for a rapid and reliable characterization of cultural heritage materials.  
For the future, several improvements to the FUXYA system are foreseen, such as the use of a small camera that, together with the laser pointer, would create a better positioning system, based on the principle of optical triangulation, as in the Artax 200 spectrometer. In this way the distance sensor, not very reliable on reflective surfaces, could be replaced.  
Another improvement is to use a Raspberry Pi instead of the Arduino UNO board. The main difference between these two systems is that Arduino UNO is a simple microcontroller board that is programmed using the Arduino IDE and can only run the compiled code; while Raspberry Pi is a single-board computer that can operate as a stand-alone system. The necessary software (Mini-X2 Controller for the X-ray tube and DANTE for the detector) could be installed directly on the Raspberry Pi, optimizing the communication between the programs. Eliminating Arduino and the breadboard would also save space so that the source controller and the detector electronics could be housed inside the case, achieving a fully integrated system. All this would lead to completely discarding the laptop in favor of an even more portable and compact system, with no cost increase.  
Conceptualization, L.B.; software, G.R.; validation, G.R., F.M. and J.O.; formal analysis, F.M. and G.R.; investigation, G.R., F.M. and J.O.; writing--original draft preparation, L.B. and G.R.; writing--review and editing, L.B. and A.G.; supervision, L.B. and A.G. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. This research received no external funding.  
The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.  
The authors would like to thank the Physics Department Mechanical Workshop of Universita degli Studi di Milano for their suggestions and kind availability.  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.