THE INTERNATIONAL REMOTE MONITORING PROJECT - RESULTS OF THE SWEDISH NUCLEAR POWER FACILITY FIELD TRIAL

The Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) and the US Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored work on a Remote Monitoring System (RMS) that was installed at a Swedish Nuclear Power Facility operated by Sydcraft. The RMS, designed by Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), was installed In August 1994 at the Barseback Works located north of Malmo, Sweden. The RMS was designed to test the front end detection concept that would be used for unattended remote monitoring activities. Front end detection reduces the number of video images recorded and provides additional sensor verification of facility operations. The function of any safeguards Containment and Surveillance (C/S) system is to collect information which primarily is images that verify the operations at a nuclear facility. The Barseback Nuclear Power facility is ideal to test the concept of front end detection since the majority of activities of safeguard's interest is the movement of spent fuel which occurs once a year. The RMS at Barseback uses a network of nodes to collect data from microwave motion detectors placed to detect the entrance and exit of spent fuel casks through a hatch. A video system using digital compression collects digital images and stores them on a hard drive and a digital optical disk. Data and images from the storage area are remotely monitored via telephone from Stockholm, Sweden and Albuquerque, NM, USA. These remote monitoring stations, operated by SKI and SNL respectively, can retrieve data and images from the RMS computer at .the Barseback Facility. The data and images are encrypted before transmission. This paper will present the details of the RMS and the test results of this approach to front end detection of safeguard activities.