Year
2009
Abstract
The lifecycle management of safeguards instrumentation is a critical activity for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to ensure that installed equipment complies with their reliability and data security requirements. For this reason, the IAEA must continually develop new safeguards solutions in order to counter obsolescence problems and to stay ahead of the adversary who might apply technology advances to defeat older systems. The development of the Next Generation Surveillance System (NGSS) is such a development to replace the DCM14-technology, which was first implemented for safeguards in 1998. After ten years of reliable performance, the DCM14 is gradually reaching the end of its lifecycle with critical components disappearing from the market and more advanced components becoming commercially available. Due to the unique requirements of safeguards instrumentation (e.g. radiation tolerance and extremely high data security), custom-designed solutions are indispensable for NGSS, with commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) equipment playing an important complementary role. The first three of four development phases have been reported in prior INMM paper publications. The present paper will outline the work of phase four which includes the testing of the NGSS zero production run to prepare for the final acceptance of the system as standard IAEA safeguards instrumentation. It will also give an overview on the proposed fielding schedule and replacement scenarios for special surveillance applications. A list of lessons learned that aim at helping future development projects will conclude the paper.