Nuclear smuggling

Finding a Nuclear Weapon: Hope Beyond the Screwdriver

To find a nuclear weapon, radiation detectors are typically used to measure radiation emissions. The problem is that these detectors are rarely able to measure long enough, close enough, and without shielding in the way. This is especially true in city environments. Let’s look at a scenario in which a nuclear weapon is in a vehicle driving down a street. Scanning vehicles with detectors positioned on the side of roads or on overpasses only gives a couple seconds of measurement per vehicle and the cargo surrounding the weapon as well the vehicle itself provides some shielding.

A majority of the current technologies deployed today are for finding radiological sources by gamma ray detection. They primarily consist of detectors the size of cell phones attached to a police officer’s belt.