Year
2000
Abstract
Design and validation of a distributed safeguards monitoring system (SMS) simulation is conducted as a means of investigating validation metrics. The research goal is to create a simulation of an SMS where the data can be compared with that of a laboratory referent. In this, the first phase of study, agreement between simulation and referent data is analyzed in the context of the simulation objective using rigorous statistical methods and expressed in terms of a fitness metric. Fitness defines the validity of the simulation. The referent, under construction at the Atominstitut in Vienna Austria, is comprised of a digital camera and two neutron detectors. A benefit of the process of computing simulation fitness is automation of the SMS data review. Preliminary results suggest that routine and anomalous events in a nuclear facility could be discriminated using a system based on simulation data. Phase-two research will deal with how the fitness metric can be used to rationally order changes in the simulation in terms of fidelity metrics, which are measures of the simulation's realism.