Current safeguards inspection needs place significant demands on both inspectors and the facilities being inspected. Safeguards inspectors of nuclear facilities must use their limited time to gather and process multiple disparate streams of information within their limited time in the facility. Facilities are eager to limit down time associated with inspections. The future includes increasing worldwide interest in expanding the numbers and types of reactors as well as in the use of new fuel types and new fuel cycles. These changes will only increase the difficulty and complexity of inspections and may also require new measurement techniques and instrumentation. The National Nuclear Security Administration Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development has a vision for Safeguards of unobtrusive surveillance with instantaneous accountability. In this work, we examine the topic of new frontiers for automated Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability as well as discuss specific efforts. For example, an Institute of Nuclear Materials Management working group showed community consensus in the need for a digital assistant for inspectors. This digital assistant was given the name International Nuclear Safeguards Personal Examination and Containment Tracking Assistant or INSPECTA. We discuss efforts funded at Sandia National Laboratories to realize an early instantiation of this concept.
Year
2022
Abstract