Testing methodology for cargo radiography systems

Abstract

This paper describes the considerations involved in creating a plan for testing cargo radiography systems for use in the detection of nuclear material covertly passing through a port of entry. There are three sources of test types than can be used in these tests; they come from existing standards, from concepts developed in modeling the systems, and from analogs to the actual use planned for the systems. Each of these sources has individual factors to be taken into account, and the paper attempts to list the key factors needed in constructing the test plan and to describe the principal issues related to each. These tests need to produce data which can help determine both how to incrementally improve the technology and also to assess how it might fit into a suite of inspection systems.