Black box radiation gauges and analyzers: dream or reality?

This paper describes our attempts to make radiation gauges and analyzers operate in more of a ‘block box’ manner — being more independent of or at least more insensitive to changes in such things as sample composition and position. Our overall approach relies heavily on Monte Carlo simulation and that is discussed first in relation to radiation gauge and analyzer design and usage. Then the principles and applications of radiation gauges and analyzers including the Measurement Chi-Square and Monte Carlo Library Least-Squares, respectively, are treated. Finally future work in this area is discussed.