Real-Time Tracking of Nuclear and Radioactive Material Packages in Transport

Real time situation awareness is an important prerequisite for ensuring safety, security, and safeguards of nuclear and radioactive materials in transport. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Environmental Management, Office of Packaging and Transportation, Argonne National Laboratory has developed and tested a highly automated, sensor-based system, called ARG-US TransPort, to support this goal. The key elements of ARG-US TransPort consist of a radio frequency identification (RFID) system employing active sensors with long-life (> 10 years) batteries, a vehicle tracking system incorporating global positioning system (GPS) and satellite communication modules, a geodatabase issuing geographic information system (GIS) report, when necessary, for emergency management, and a pilot RFID command center hosting secure local and central databases and web servers at Argonne National Laboratory, IL, USA. The sensors in the ARG-US RFID tags that are attached to the transport packages can monitor temperature, humidity, seal integrity, shock and battery status. Information is sent from the tags at preset interval, or upon an operator query, to an interrogator (also known as reader) mounted in the cargo bay of the transport vehicle. From the reader, the information, along with other pertinent vehicle data such as GPS locations, is relayed to the Argonne command center via the Qualcomm OmniTRACS satellite communication module. When an alarm state is encountered by any of the sensors in the tag, a notification is promptly sent to the Argonne command center to alert the user and other responsible individuals via automated texted messages. A dedicated secure database server and its backup at the command center can manage the information from a single vehicle to multiple convoys and displays the information on a secured web page for remote access by authorized users. The system also allows the administrator to send commands to the vehicle so certain operations, such as resetting the alarm state or adjusting the alarm thresholds, can be performed remotely, if necessary, without distracting the driver. In case of a transportation incident, a GIS report using data in preexisting geodatabases can be issued promptly with ARG-US TransPort. Such reports, containing important information on local assets and vulnerabilities, can greatly aid the first responders in emergency management. Extensive testing in multiple transportation platforms has shown that ARGUS TransPort can reliably track and monitor multiple transport packages near real time.