Unattended monitoring system at a static storage area with real-time event notification.
- James D.
- Stephen E.
- Kelly D.
- Mark J.
- Thomas E.
Domestic Safeguards at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and throughout the Department of Energy (DOE)/National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) complex has historically relied on administrative and non-integrated approaches to implement nuclear safeguards at its facilities. Besides the heavy cost born by the facility and the compliance oversight organization, the safeguards assurance is only periodic, potentially allowing an adversary a longer time before detection. Even after detection, the lack of situational awareness makes it difficult to assess events. By leveraging unattended monitoring systems (UMS) used by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), we have designed a baseline system that has high reliability through fault tolerant designs for both hardware and software. Applying IAEA design goals to assure no loss of data and using a dual containment strategy, this system is a first step in implementing modern safeguards monitoring systems at LANL and, hopefully, applications at other DOE/NNSA sites. This paper will review the design requirements and how they will be met, to provide a real-time event notification for a static storage location. The notification system triggers communications to pagers and email addresses for a fast response by facility personnel to the violation of a defined safeguards exclusion zone. Since the system has to be installed in an existing facility, the challenges to the designers will be presented. Aside from the initial baseline system that relies on surveillance cameras and seals, other optional upgrades will be detailed, showing both the power and the promise of unattended systems for domestic safeguards. We will also include a short discussion of the business obstacles to modernizing safeguards and how a UMS system may be applied to dynamic activities at a nuclear facility. Ultimately, the current lack of such modern monitoring systems reflects the many business obstacles internal to DOE/NNSA to the use of modern safeguards in the DOE Complex.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- OSTI ID:
- 977996
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-05-5232; TRN: US201012%%847
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 46th Annual INMM Meeting, July 2005, Phoenix, AZ
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
BN-350 unattended safeguards system current status and initial fuel movement data
Combining Inspection and Unattended Monitoring: Statistical Analysis of Timely Detection