Remote Monitoring Operational Experience

Under international partnerships and bilateral agreements with the U.S. Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories, other national laboratories, and international partner organizations have emplaced remote monitoring systems in nuclear facilities and laboratories in various parts of the world for the purpose of conducting field trials of remote monitoring. The purpose of the present report is to review the results from these field trials and draw general conclusions regarding the trials. Many thousands of hours of sensor and system operation have been logged, and data have been retrieved from many locations. In virtually all cases the system components have functioned as intended and data have been successfully collected and transmitted for review. Comparisons between front-endtriggered video and time-lapse video have shown that the triggered record has captured all relevant monitored operations at the various nuclear facilities included in the field trials. We believe the utility and functional reliability of remote monitoring for international safeguards has been shown. However, it should be kept in mind that openness and transparency, including some form of short-notice inspections, are likely to be prerequisites to the safeguards implementation of remote monitoring in any State.