Extensive simulations of a portable radiation detecting system have been performed in order to explore important performance parameters. The instrument consists of a stack of ten detecting layers made of pixelated Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) crystals. Its aim is to localize and identify radiation sources, by exploiting the Compton imaging technique. In this paper we present performance parameters based on simulation studies. Specifically the ratio of incompletely absorbed photons, the detector’s absolute efficiency as well as its energy and angular resolution are evaluated in a wide range of incident photon energies.