Year
2015
Abstract
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has begun using a higher resolution color digital surveillance system called the NGSS. This higher resolution camera could allow for new safeguards applications that utilize optical character recognition (OCR) or two-dimensional (2D) barcode reading. This capability could expedite the IAEA’s verification of a facility’s book inventory or allow the agency to find efficiencies during onsite inspections by reducing the need to manually record the identities of cylinders. Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory exercised the NGSS under controlled laboratory conditions to assess how well OCR and 2D barcode recognition algorithms performed on images captured with the NGSS. Based on this assessment, the authors recommend that a 2D barcode be a component of any future cylinder nameplate design to preserve the option to use machine vision to automatically identify the cylinder. The authors also noted that the NGSS could be used to perform OCR or barcode recognition but that it would be challenging to design a system with enough pixels on a character or a barcode of interest to automatically identify the object given the camera’s resolution.