Chain of Custody Backbone System Evaluation Experiments

While New START limits strategic deployed delivery vehicles and weapons, future arms control initiatives may limit and/or require monitoring of non-deployed nuclear weapons in addition to deployed forces. As described previously, the Chain of Custody (CoC) Field Evaluations project, sponsored by the NNSA Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development, is developing and evaluating options for maintaining continuity of knowledge of nuclear weapons through the use of technologies including active item monitor seals, item sensors, facility sensors, and the data management systems needed to collect, analyze, and transmit the data to a treaty partner. These technologies, deployed at a national test bed, are currently focused on monitoring non-deployed warheads throughout their lifecycles – from initial entry into a monitoring regime to the beginning of a dismantlement process. During the 2012 fiscal year, Sandia developed a monitoring system based on relatively mature technologies. The Sandia team conducted evaluation experiments to assess the performance of this system with respect to (1) tracking warhead inventories at a single site with multiple facilities and between multiple sites, (2) demonstrating synergy among multiple sensors and tamper-indicating features to enhance confidence, and (3) detecting and responding to selected failure and tamper scenarios. The experiments were designed to mimic some of the operational factors that would be experienced in actual storage and maintenance environments and highlight the difficulties in both deploying and implementing a CoC system. The results of the experiment showed that the initial system was capable of tracking test objects through multiple facilities and sites, and that selected attempts to divert material or tamper with the monitoring system were reliably detected using a central data management system. These initial experiments guide future refinement of monitoring technologies, investigation of new monitoring technologies, and the evaluation of alternative concepts of operations envisioned for such a monitoring regime. This paper will discuss the design of the experiment, the results, and the lessons learned in more detail.