Publications

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The RoboHound{trademark} Project was a three-year, multiphase project at Sandia National Laboratories to build and refine a working prototype trace explosive detection system as a tool for a commercial robot. The RoboHound system was envisioned to be a tool for emergency responders to test suspicious items (i.e., packages or vehicles) for explosives while maintaining a safe distance. The project investigated combining Sandia's expertise in trace explosives detection with a wheeled robotic platform that could be programmed to interrogate suspicious items remotely for the presence of explosives. All of the RoboHound field tests were successful, especially with regards to the ability to collect and detect trace samples of RDX. The project has gone from remote sampling with human intervention to a fully automatic system that requires no human intervention until the robot returns from a sortie. A proposal is being made for additional work leading towards commercialization.

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To date, the Department of Energy's (DOE) Material Protection, Control, and Accountancy (MPC and A) program has assisted in the implementation of operational site-wide MPC and A systems at several nuclear facilities in Russia. Eleven sites from the civilian sector have completed the site-wide installations and two have completed sub-site installations. By the end of 1999, several additional sites will have completed site-wide and sub-site system installations through DOE assistance. the effort at the completed sites has focused primarily on the design, integration, and installation of upgraded MPC and A systems. In most cases, little work has been performed to ensure that the installed systems will be sustained. Because of concerns that the installed systems would not be operated in the future, DOE established a sustainability pilot program involving the 11 sites. The purpose of DOE's MPC and A Sustainability Program is to ensure that MPC and A upgrades installed at sites in Russia are effective and will continue to operate over the long term. The program mission is to work with sites where rapid upgrades have been completed to cultivate enduring and consistent MPC and A practices. The program attempts to assist the Russian sites to develop MPC and A organizations that will operate, maintain, and continue to improve the systems and procedures. Future assistance will strive to understand and incorporate culturally sensitive approaches so that the sites take ownership for all MPC and A matters. This paper describes the efforts of the sustainability program to date.

Materials Protection, Control and Accounting (MPC and A) equipment upgrades are complete at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP), a site that has significant quantities of weapons-potential nuclear materials. Cooperative work was initiated at this Moscow facility as a part of the US-Russian program to upgrade MPC and A systems. An initial site visit and assessment were conducted in September 1996 to establish communication between ITEP, the US Department of Energy (DOE), and participating US National Laboratories. Subsequently, an agreement was reached to develop two master plans for MPC and A upgrades. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) assisted in developing a plan for Material Control and Accounting (MC and A) upgrades, and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) assisted in developing a plan for Physical Protection System (PPS) upgrades. The MC and A plan included MC and A training, a mass measurement program, nondestructive assay instrumentation, item identification (bar coding), physical inventory taking, portal and hand-held nuclear material monitors, and a nuclear materials accounting system. The PPS plan included basic PPS design training, Central Alarm Station (CAS) relocation and equipment upgrades, a site and critical-building access control system, intrusion detection, alarm assessment, and guard force communications.