28 June 2021 to 2 July 2021
Europe/Vienna timezone

Signal injection as a means to exercise the entire CTBT monitoring regime

O4.1-121
30 Jun 2021, 14:49
15m
Location 2 (Online)

Location 2

Online

Oral T4.1 - Performance Evaluation and Modelling of the Full Verification System and its Components T4.1 - Performance Evaluation and Modelling of the Full Verification System and its Components

Speaker

Mr Steven Kreek (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA, USA)

Description

A nuclear explosion results in a complex combination of signals including radioactivity released to the environment, seismic, infrasound, and hydroacoustic. The International Monitoring System (IMS) was established to detect these signals and analysts around the world train in the interpretation of them. However, the unique combination of signals indicative of a nuclear explosion is only fully replicated in the IMS by an actual nuclear explosion, which is a rare event. While analysts can train with synthetic data, exercising the operational IMS hardware and process was impractical until a signal injection methodology called RaFTS (Radiation Field Training Simulator) was demonstrated by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Developed for radiation detectors such as those in IMS radionuclide/noble gas (RN/NG) stations, RaFTS injects pulses directly into operational detectors which are then interpreted through their electronics in the same way as real signals. Because of the universality of the RaFTS signal injection approach, it could also work with other IMS detector types, including seismic, infrasound, and hydroacoustic, thereby enabling a system-wide exercise of all IMS operating components. This presentation describes the proposed approach to enhance training and operationally exercise the entire regime. RaFTS was recently licensed for commercialization to Argon Electronics (UK) Ltd.

Promotional text

Exercising the system represents a unique scientific opportunity and method for improving nuclear test monitoring and verification in a systems manner, including modeling/simulation of representative signatures, to their detection and interpretation.

Primary author

Mr Steven Kreek (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA, USA)

Co-authors

Mr Dan Bower (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA, USA) Mr Dave Trombino (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA, USA) Mr Dunlop Bill (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA, USA) Mr Eric Swanberg (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA, USA) Mr Greg White (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA, USA) Mr Josh Oakgrove (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA, USA) Mr Philip Dunn (Argon Electronics Ltd, Luton, United Kingdom) Mr Steven Pike (Argon Electronics Ltd, Luton, United Kingdom)

Presentation materials