Application of Telepresence Technologies to Nuclear Material Safeguards

Implementation of remote monitoring systems has become a priority area for the International Atomic Energy Agency and other international inspection regimes. For the past three years, DOE2000 has been the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) initiative to develop innovative applications to exploit the capabilities of broadband networks and media integration. The aim is to enhance scientific collaboration by merging computing and communications technologies. These Internet-based telepresence technologies could be easily extended to provide remote monitoring and control for confidence building and transparency systems at nuclear facilities around the world. One of the original DOE2000 projects, the Materials Microcharacterization Collaboratory is an interactive virtual laboratory, linking seven DOE user facilities located across the US. At these facilities, external collaborators have access to scientists, data, and instrumentation, all of which are available to varying degrees using the Internet. Remote operation of the instruments varies between passive (observational) to active (direct control), in many cases requiring no software at the remote site beyond a Web browser. Live video streams are continuously available on the Web so that participants can see what is happening at a particular location. An X.509 certificate system provides strong authentication, The hardware and software are commercially available and are easily adaptable to safeguards applications