IAEA Training Course on Unattended and Remote Monitoring

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) have collaborated to develop a new training course on unattended and remote monitoring (UNARM) for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The course is designed for Safeguards inspectors, but is also suitable for technicians and other support personnel. Inspectors already receive a basic introduction to the topic as part of the IAEA’s extensive Introductory Course on Agency Safeguards (ICAS); nevertheless, there is a compelling need to create a course that more thoroughly covers the fundamentals of UNARM. The emphasis of the training is to prepare inspectors in how UNARM systems work, how to use them effectively, and how to understand the information they provide. Inspectors would then be better prepared for advanced, site-specific training on a particular unattended or remote monitoring system. The first (pilot) course will be offered to a group of twelve IAEA inspectors in July 2002. The first half of the six-day course will be held at SNL; the second half at LANL. In this paper, we will present the Sandia National Laboratories part of the course, which covers sensors, networks, data handling, transmission and storage, and more. Unlike other courses we have developed on unattended and remote monitoring, which emphasize the design and development aspects of UNARM, the IAEA training course emphasizes the practical use of UNARM for ensuring Safeguards continuity of knowledge.