Report on the capacity to monitor and detect illicit shipments of nuclear materials at entry points into the United States and key transportation nodes overseas.

The most likely means of delivering a nuclear bomb on a major city is through a successful smuggling effort by a terrorist organization. The catastrophic damage it would cause demands cooperative action by all responsible governments. Several U.S. Government programs are in place to deal with this threat.

Preventing nuclear and radioactive material from being smuggled into the U.S. -- perhaps to be used by terrorists in a nuclear weapon or in a radiological dispersal device -- has become a key national security objective. The duties of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) include acquiring and supporting the deployment of radiation detection equipment. It is responsible for the development, testing, acquisition and deployment of a system to detect radiation at U.S. ports of entry. This report reviews: (1) the projected costs to implement DNDO¿s 2006 project execution plan for the radiation portal monitor program; and (2) the reliability of DNDO¿s projections given what is known about the costs to procure, install, and operate radiation detection equipment. Illus.

Radiation detection is important in many fields, and it poses significant challenges for instrument designers. Radiation detection instruments, particularly for nuclear decommissioning and security applications, are required to operate in unknown environments and should detect and characterise radiation fields in real time. This book covers both theory and practice, and it solicits recent advances in radiation detection, with a particular focus on radiation detection instrument design, real-time data processing, radiation simulation and experimental work, robot design, control systems, task planning and radiation shielding.