THE INTERNATIONAL REMOTE MONITORING PROJECT - RESULTS OF THE AUSTRALIAN DRY SPENT FUEL STORAGE FACILITY FIELD TRIAL

An agreement between the Australian Safeguards Office (ASO) and the United States Department of Energy (DOE) was concluded in 1993 which provided for cooperation in research and development activities in international safeguards. In February 1994, engineers and technologists from Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) installed a remote monitoring system (RMS) at the Dry Spent Fuel Storage Facility (DSFSF) at the Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Organisation's Laboratories at Lucas Heights, Sydney, Australia. The initial intention of the project was to trial a number of independent motion detection devices which could also be networked together on a system. The system was configured to test the network technology, digital video compression and a number of other related concepts which are necessary to prove the feasibility of remote monitoring. Each device was capable of triggering an event which would cause a video camera to collect an image and store it on an optical disk in a computer. The DSFSF at Lucas Heights was chosen as suitable site because it was already a facility under IAEA safeguards and was an ideal facility from the viewpoint of location and a relatively small number of movements; in other words, essentially a static inventory for the duration of the trial. The installation of the RMS and a full description of the system has been described previously by Johnson, Sorokowski and Veevers (1) (2), Sorokowski, Veevers and Johnson (3) and Sonnier et al (4) This paper describes the connection of an additional motion detection device developed by an Australian company, 3 DIS Pty Ltd, to the RMS and preliminary results arising from the first twelve months trial of the system. A detailed description of the 3DIS (3-Dimensional Interactive Space) motion detection device is described. A future modification of the RMS to reflect more realistically a safeguards situation is also discussed. Finally, aspects of the RMS as a safeguards 976 tool from a nuclear research facility operator's point of view is discussed.