Performance Validation of Monitoring Systems for Strengthened Safeguards

International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards have traditionally relied on material balance accounting at declared facilities within a country. However, as the Agency moves to apply integrated safeguards concepts on a country-wide basis to detect clandestine nuclear material activities in both declared and undeclared facilities, new tools are needed to permit the Agency to satisfy safeguards objectives within imposed resource and cost constraints. If properly implemented, remote and unattended monitoring can provide assurance that materials are not diverted and that the safeguards system is functioning as required and is producing valid results. A concept for developing monitoring systems that provide assurance of proper system performance is described here. The approach is based on evaluation of the sequential pattern of operations and data relationships, and implementation of a system of measurements and tests to validate operational performance. A key feature is the analysis of information and data from the monitoring system for use by an off-site inspectorate. Example applications of the generic concepts to a measurement system and to reprocessing operations are provided.