Nuclear security

New Software Can Detect Nuclear Blasts

When North Korea conducted its recent nuclear weapon test, the blast had been detected by a global seismic sensing network operated by the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). The network, called the International Monitoring System, aims to “make sure that no nuclear explosion goes undetected.” Software designed in part by a Brown University computer scientist is helping to do just that.

The most recent North Korean test was not terribly difficult to detect. It was a fairly large blast, it occurred in a place where a test was not surprising, and the North Korean government made no effort to hide it. But clandestine tests of smaller devices, perhaps by terrorist organizations or other nonstate actors, are a different story. According to Homeland Security News Wire, it is those difficult-to-detect events that VISA — a machine learning system that Brown University’s Erik Sudderth helped to design — aims to find.