Year
1990
Abstract
At the Los Alamos National Laboratory Plutonium Facility, a robotics system utilizing a gantry robot and an automated inventory system will operate five calorimeters and two gamma isotopic assay instruments. This system can significantly improve safeguards, because the opportunity for diversion can be greatly reduced. Not only will the accountability be much more timely because throughput will be doubled, but the special nuclear material can be made physically more secure in several ways. First, items awaiting assay are kept in the inventory system, whose doors remain locked whenever the robot is unattended. The doors can be made to alarm if they are unlocked without authorization. Second, light curtains which surround the robot's work envelope and pressure-sensitive pads which cover the floor to protect personnel from the robot can also be used to detect entry into the assay area. Third, the robot weighs each item whenever it is moved, and the result is compared with the weight that was measured when the item was first put into inventory.