OPTICAL SURVEILLANCE FOR INTERNATIONAL SAFEGUARDS PRESENT AND FUTURE

Optical surveillance, one of the principal Containment and Surveillance (C/S) measures employed by the IAEA, is accomplished using film camera and video systems. Improved film camera and video systems developed in several countries are in the final stages of Agency evaluation and are expected to be placed into routine safeguards use in the near future. One system is the Surveillance and Television Recording (STAR) System. This system is a dual camera high capability unit which is expected to replace the current IAEA systems as time progresses. Another is the MINISTAR which is a much smaller, single camera unit which incorporates recent technology advances, and retains many of the basic STAR features at a considerably lower cost. Beyond these near-term advances, it is expected that video camera and recording technology will soon be available which will make video systems competitive with the film camera systems. The introduction of such technology will provide for other advanced techniques, such as laser disc recording and image processing, which are expected to improve the effectiveness of optical surveillance systems.