Passive neutron detection for interdiction of nuclear material at borders

High Resolution Detection Systems for Interdiction of Nuclear Material Trafficking

The interdiction of nuclear materials during illegal transportation requires both detection of radiation and identification of radionuclides in order to distinguish among the various categories of nuclides and their implied threat. Interdiction regimes, based upon available technologies, were developed rapidly after the tragic events of 9-11. In general, a low resolution or "no-resolution" port...

Interdiction Modeling for Smuggled Nuclear Material

We describe a stochastic interdiction model on a transportation network consisting of two adversaries: a nuclear-material smuggler and an interdictor. The interdictor first installs radiation detectors on the network. These installations are transparent to the smuggler, and are made under an uncertain threat scenario, which specifies the smuggler’s origin and destination, the nature of the mate...

Models for nuclear smuggling interdiction

We describe two stochastic network interdiction models for thwarting nuclear smuggling. In the first model, the smuggler travels through a transportation network on a path that maximizes the probability of evading detection, and the interdictor installs radiation sensors to minimize that evasion probability. The problem is stochastic because the smuggler’s origin-destination pair is known only ...

Detection of radioactive materials at borders

Prioritizing Network Interdiction of Nuclear Smuggling

We develop a stochastic network interdiction model for prioritizing locations for installing radiation detectors along a nation’s border. In this one-country model, we characterize the smuggler population by a set of possible threat scenarios, where the identity of the smuggler is unknown at the time we install detectors. Detector performance depends on the threat scenario, as well as a number ...