Year
1999
Abstract
The IAEA has always co-ordinated longer-term instrumentation initiatives, standardized safeguards equipment and limited the number of equipment types used by the Agency, so that equipment maintenance costs, including those associated with staff training, can be minimized. The IAEA Integrated Safeguards Instrumentation Programme (I2SIP) tried to solve these problem by defining a standard (VXI) based on which a limited set of standardized equipment modules could be developed and assembled into a variety of integrated instrumental systems. Due to the limited degree of success of I2SIP in this area, a new approach has been developed by IAEA and agreed among the different instrument developers and suppliers. Such an approach has required the definition of an integration platform able to network together individual instruments based on any communications bus. The paper describes the new approach and describes new equipment developed following such guidelines.