USING RULES-BASED EVENT PROCESSING FOR SAFEGUARDS MONITORING SYSTEMS

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has been employing rules-based event-processing methods for several years for monitoring systems requiring the integration of different types of safeguards and security technologies. These unattended systems inherently acquire vast amounts of data, identify meaningful events from sensor data streams, and then process those events based on situation-specific rules to initiate requisite actions or provide timely conclusions in a human-assimilable form. Data are preserved in archives and may be used for performing forensics and any post processing of rule variants. The anticipated global nuclear expansion will increase the burden on International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors and analysts to perform the robust, time-consuming analyses of data that ensure the safe, secure, and peaceful uses of nuclear technologies. Unattended monitoring systems—incorporating site-specific rulesbased event-detection algorithms that combine and reduce the data and integrate multiple layers of technologies—will improve overall IAEA inspection efficiency and effectiveness. This paper discusses how rules-based event-processing techniques can be applied to safeguards monitoring systems and provides some examples from real-world evaluations involving tracking UF6 cylinders and monitoring their feed and withdrawal operations.