Secure Wireless Communications for Harsh Environments in Safeguards and Security

There is strong need to develop new robust RF communication systems to support wireless communications and instrumentation control in harsh environments. The nuclear industry has many examples of such environments, including geological repositories and nuclear facilities such as nuclear power plants. Often these facilities have large metallic structures with electro-magnetic (EM) transients from plant equipment. The ambient EMI/RFI harsh environment is responsible for degrading radio link bandwidth. Current communication systems often employ physical cables that are not only expensive to install, but deteriorate over time and are vulnerable to failures. Furthermore, conventional high-power narrowband walkie-talkies sometimes upset other electronics. On the other hand, high-quality reliable wireless communications between operators and automated control systems are critical in these facilities, as wireless sensors become more and more prevalent in these operations. In an effort to develop novel wireless communications systems, Dirac Solutions Inc., in collaboration with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), has developed high-quality ultra-wideband (UWB) hand-held communications systems that have proven to have excellent performance in ships and tunnels. These systems use novel modulation and demodulation techniques for short pulse UWB communications. The design is a low-power one and in a compact form. The communication units can be produced inexpensively in large quantities. The short pulse UWB RF technology, with bandwidths of many hundreds of MHz’s, are non-interfering due to low average power. Furthermore, the UWB link has been shown to be highly reliable in the presence of other interfering signals. These UWB communications systems can be adapted for applications in tunnels and nuclear power facilities for voice, data, and instrumentation control. In this paper we show examples of voice communication in ships with UWB walkie-talkies and preliminary results from a US Department of Energy radiological waste storage facility. A major application of these units might be their use by international inspectors and facility operators.