title: Locating sensors for detecting source-to-target patterns of special nuclear material smuggling: a spatial information theoretic approach.
abstract: In this paper, a spatial information-theoretic model is proposed to locate sensors for detecting source-to-target patterns of special nuclear material (SNM) smuggling. In order to ship the nuclear materials from a source location with SNM production to a target city, the smugglers must employ global and domestic logistics systems. This paper focuses on locating a limited set of fixed and mobile radiation sensors in a transportation network, with the intent to maximize the expected information gain and minimize the estimation error for the subsequent nuclear material detection stage. A Kalman filtering-based framework is adapted to assist the decision-maker in quantifying the network-wide information gain and SNM flow estimation accuracy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, USA. jjpriz@gmail.com
authors.forename: Jay
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Przybyla
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.forename: Xuesong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003415:Crime / Q000517:prevention & control*; D004603:Elements, Radioactive / Q000737:chemistry*; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000295:instrumentation*; D040362:Geographic Information Systems; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D023481:Terrorism / Q000517:prevention & control; D014186:Transportation / Q000592:standards*
chemical_list: D004603:Elements, Radioactive