Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01m326m509z
Title: | Absent-Minded and Robotic Inspectors: Nuclear Verification Techniques with Minimal Access to Items, Sites, and Information |
Authors: | Lepowsky, Eric Scott |
Advisors: | Glaser, Alexander |
Contributors: | Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department |
Keywords: | Nuclear arms control Nuclear safeguards Radiation detection Robotics Verification |
Subjects: | Mechanical engineering Applied physics |
Issue Date: | 2024 |
Publisher: | Princeton, NJ : Princeton University |
Abstract: | Nuclear nonproliferation and arms control are predicated on declarations, data exchange, and inspections to verify agreed upon limits on nuclear weapons or materials. While it is difficult to anticipate the objectives of future international agreements, they are likely to require new verification approaches, preserving the thoroughness of onsite inspections — which have traditionally played an essential role in nuclear monitoring and verification — while resolving some concerns about intrusiveness. This would ensure a higher level of privacy for the host, who might otherwise be skeptical about approaches that could potentially reveal sensitive information. Considering the future of verification, this thesis explores verification scenarios with progressively stricter access constraints, ranging from current-day arms control to a conceptual extreme. A novel radiation detection approach is proposed, characterized, and demonstrated for three different settings. The demonstrated correctness of the three proposed approaches underscores the prospect of minimal-access inspection approaches for nuclear verification. Motivated by the verification regime of recent nuclear arms control agreements, minimal access to treaty-accountable items is enabled by confirming their absence, which avoids direct measurements of sensitive items. Since current detection methods primarily rely on neutron emissions to detect plutonium, this work provides a complementary gamma ray-based measurement protocol and prototype device capable of detecting uranium weapon components. Broadening the scope of the imposed limitation, and applicable to both nuclear safeguards and arms control, remote inspections — where the inspector is physically separated from the inspected site — are explored to address minimal inspector access to sensitive sites. To realize this concept, the development and characterization of a robotic neutron detector is detailed, providing single-measurement directional determination, source localization, and template matching capabilities. Progressing further along the continuum of minimal access, the final scenario envisioned advances the concept of robotic inspections by limiting observations to only those that are strictly necessary for performing the verification task. The culmination of this work is an “absent-minded robotic inspector” for minimal access to, and storage or revelation of, sensitive information, defined to include the radiation measurements, any observable features of the search environment, and even the site’s layout. |
URI: | http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01m326m509z |
Type of Material: | Academic dissertations (Ph.D.) |
Language: | en |
Appears in Collections: | Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering |
Files in This Item:
This content is embargoed until 2025-06-06. For questions about theses and dissertations, please contact the Mudd Manuscript Library. For questions about research datasets, as well as other inquiries, please contact the DataSpace curators.
Items in Dataspace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.