A 4-point in-situ method to locate a discrete gamma-ray source in 3-D space

The determination of the source position (x,y,z) of a discrete gamma-ray source using peak count rates from four measurement points was studied. We derived semi-empirical formulas to find the position under the condition to neglect attenuation effects by obstacles between the target source and the detector. To validate the methodology, we performed the locating experiments for a 137Cs small volume source placed at 10 different positions on the floor of a laboratory using the formulas derived in this study. In this study, a portable HPGe gamma spectrometry system with a virtual point detector concept was used. The calculation results for the source positions were compared with reference values measured with a rule. The applicability of the methodology was estimated based on the differences of the results.