Radar–Spectrometric Method for Determining the Characteristics of Radioactive Emission

The uncertainty of the measurement geometry – absence of information about shape, dimensions, activity distribution, and spatial position of the radioactive cloud relative to the detector location – makes it difficult to perform γ spectrometry of radioactive emissions, for example, from nuclear power plants. The combined use of γ spectrometer and radar-tracer method, which “visualizes” a radioactive cloud, makes it possible to switch from qualitative analysis of γ spectra to determination of quantitative content of radionuclides in the emission. Schemes for radar-spectrometric probing and the basic computational relations for determining the activity of radionuclides are examined.