Falcon 5000™ Portable HPGe-Based Nuclear Identifier

Features

• High resolution Radionuclide Identification for security, emergency, and assessment applications
• Wide energy response range from 20 keV to 3 MeV for full range of nuclides of interest (ANSI 42.34)
• Pulse Tube electrical cooling eliminates hassle of liquid nitrogen without loss of energy resolution
• Fast cool down; ready to use in less than three hours
• Internal GPS
• Full featured tablet PC with touchscreen enables the full functionality of Genie™ 2000
• Both wired and wireless communications between detector and the control unit allows remote operation
• External review of spectrum and identification results via e-mail or other data networks
• Automatic, understandable, classification of detected radionuclides
• Internal batteries allow independent operation of instrument for up to 6–8 hours
• Complete cool down in the field on battery power only. No additional time required to cool and enough addition power remaining for 1–2 hour operation
• Hot swappable rechargeable batteries support continuous field operation
• Generic ISOCS™ characterization is included and allows radionuclide activities to be calculated for complicated geometries
• Optional neutron detector

Description

The Falcon 5000™ is a state-of-the-art portable Radionuclide Identifier (RID) based on a High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector. It quickly and accurately answers: “Is there a radiation source present?”, “Where is it?”, and importantly “What isotopes are emitting the radiation?”

The Falcon 5000 accomplishes these goals by combining the best resolution HPGe detector technology with ultra-low microphonic electrical cooling. In addition to the highest resolution detector on the market, the Falcon 5000 integrates a unique BEGe detector that is superior in efficiency and lower in cost than standard coaxial detectors.

The Falcon 5000 is a highly powerful and customizable field spectroscopy system. The system comes complete with a full version of CANBERRA’s industry leading gamma analysis software, Genie 2000, that has been developed based on over 40 years of experience in all types of radiation measurement environments. The full power of Genie 2000 analysis is available in the Falcon 5000; however, a Simple “push button” user interface allows easy navigation through the instruments’ basic control functions. The measurement can be stopped, started and saved at any time. Available user modes are: Dose, Locate, Spectrum and NID. All modes are available from the main screen. Once the Falcon 5000 has been configured, the user simply starts the measurement, uses the Locate function to find the increased radiation field, and then looks at the NID page for the results. The spectrum can be viewed at any time to determine if the NID results match the collected spectrum for consistency.

The main objective is to get the right answer, regardless of whether the user is an expert or novice. This ability is greatly enhanced by the underlying capabilities of the Genie 2000 platform. Although the Falcon 5000 comes pre-configured with an ANSI N42.34 compatible nuclide library, the user can easily review the contents of any existing nuclide library and even edit the current library or load a different library as the application requires. Of course this capability is password protected to ensure lock out protection.

More importantly, not only can the library be managed in the field, the actual analysis that calculates the identification can also be predefined and easily changed in the field through the touchscreen interface. The tool can be tailored to any application by defining the type of analysis and adjusting the parameters of the calculation.