Year
2004
Abstract
Previous work in collaboration with the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCSR) and the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office (ASNO) has demonstrated the potential application of spectral information, particularly from visible and near-infrared hyperspectral sensors such as the Canadian CASI instrument and the Australian Probe-1 used on airborne platforms, as well as the Hyperion satellite of the United States Geological Survey, for the following situations: terrain and vegetation classification; water usage (and by inference certain mining or milling operations); and geographic movements of ore material on the site by spectral discrimination. This paper describes a joint project between Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) – Valcartier and the Canadian Safeguards Support Program (CSSP), which examines the possibility of applying a similar detection technique to the identification of nuclear and related products, which is based on the measurement of the spectral signature of the material in the thermal infrared region. Preliminary results of reflectance spectra measured in the laboratory by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy for materials such as U3O8, CsI, CoO, Co3O4, SrO, I2O5 and La2O3 show the presence of detailed infrared signatures in the transparent atmospheric window region (8 – 13 microns) of the thermal infrared spectrum. From a series of simulations using the radiative transfer model MODTRAN4, it has been shown that these materials have a high potential of being detected from altitudes of 1 m to 1 km above the earth’s surface. Additional work is being planned to include the measurement of thermal infrared signatures from other nuclear materials, such as UO2, UO3 and fuel pellets. In addition, a campaign of ground measurements is being undertaken at DRDC Valcartier with the Compact Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer in order to further investigate the application of the passive infrared measurement technique to the detection of nuclear and related materials at standoff distances of several meters. We anticipate that measurements from the Multispectral Thermal Imager (MTI) satellite will complement this data. In addition to the applications in safeguards mentioned above, the result of this work has potential use in the identification of chemical and biological agents or detection of the affected “footprint” following nuclear incidents or accidents.