Photorealistic data visualization for an ultra-wide band real-time location system in a nuclear facility

Nuclear material facilities are required to continually maintain knowledge of the status of special nuclear material (SNM). This can become time and labor intensive, requiring personnel to regularly inventory, track, and assess the location and movement of SNMs within the facility. The utilization of ultra-wide band (UWB) systems in a nuclear facility could enable the real-time location tracking of nuclear material assets with accuracies potentially better than 30 cm. This capability benefits tasks involving asset location and allows operators to understand the movement of nuclear material within a facility, while reducing potential radiation exposure. Most UWB applications for real-time tracking include visualizations that are 2D and use simple dot representations for the tagged assets. To improve these visualizations, the authors previously developed an application for visualizing these UWB-RFID tagged assets in a photorealistic, 3D environment. In this work, the use of the photorealistic 3D visualization application is demonstrated in a mockup nuclear facility. The application allows users to virtually move through the test environment to observe the movement of SNMs in real-time. The 3D photorealistic tool demonstrated in this work could be useful for processes in nuclear material facilities, such as material containment, surveillance, monitoring, and physical inventorying.