Engineering topics

White, Timothy A

Publications and source records attributed to White, Timothy A.

3 records

DOE OSTI2013

Phase Contrast X-ray Imaging Signatures for Security Applications

Abstract: Differential phase contrast imaging with a grating interferometer is a promising new radiographic technique providing three distinct contrast mechanisms - absorption, phase, and scatter (or dark field) - using a conventional x-ray tube source. We investigate the signatures available in these three contrast mechanisms with attention towards potential security applications. We find that the scatter mode in particular is sensitive to textured materials, enabling lowered detection limits than absorption for materials such as powders. We investigate the length scales to which our imaging system is sensitive.

Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory↗

DOE OSTI2011

Low-Intrusion Techniques and Sensitive Information Management for Warhead Counting and Verification: FY2011 Annual Report

Future arms control treaties may push nuclear weapons limits to unprecedented low levels and may entail precise counting of warheads as well as distinguishing between strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. Such advances will require assessment of form and function to confidently verify the presence or absence of nuclear warheads and/or their components. Imaging with penetrating radiation can provide such an assessment and could thus play a unique role in inspection scenarios. Yet many imaging capabilities have been viewed as too intrusive from the perspective of revealing weapon design details, and the potential for the release of sensitive information poses challenges in verification settings. A widely held perception is that verification through radiography requires images of sufficient quality that an expert (e.g., a trained inspector or an image-matching algorithm) can verify the presence or absence of components of a device. The concept of information barriers (IBs) has been established to prevent access to relevant weapon-design information by inspectors (or algorithms), and has, to date, limited the usefulness of radiographic inspection. The challenge of this project is to demonstrate that radiographic information can be used behind an IB to improve the capabilities of treaty-verification weapons-inspection systems.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗

DOE OSTI2011

Non-Invertible Transforms for Image-Based Verification

Imaging may play a unique role in verifying the presence and distribution of warhead components in warhead counting and dismantlement settings where image information content can distinguish among shapes, forms, and material composition of items. However, a major issue with imaging is the high level of intrusiveness, and in particular, the possible need to store sensitive comparison images in the inspection system that would violate information barrier (IB) principles. Reducing images via transformations or feature extraction can produce image features (e.g. attributes) for verification, but with enough prior information about structure the reduced information itself may be sufficient to deduce sensitive details of the original image. Further reducing resolution of the transformed image information is an option, but too much reduction destroys the quality of the attribute. We study the possibility of a one-way transform that allows storage of non-sensitive reference information and analysis to enable comparison of transformed images within IB constraints. In particular, we consider the degree to which images can be reconstructed from image intensity histograms depending on the number of pixel intensity bins and the degree of frequency data quantization, as well as assumed knowledge of configuration of objects in the images. We also explore the concept of a 'perceptual hash' as a class of transforms that may enable verification with provable non-invertibility, leading to an effective one-way transform that preserves the nature of the image feature data without revealing sufficient information to reconstruct the original image.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗