Researchers at Princeton University and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have created an automated approach to ensure that countries abide by future nuclear arms agreements.

Currently, human inspectors count warheads or confirm the removal of nuclear weapons from specific geographic locales like underground bunkers, thereby confirming that no weapons exist. However, a 3 ft robot dubbed N-SpecDir Bot could potentially take over this task, according to the researchers.

Source: Princeton University

N-SpecDir Bot can reportedly be programmed to determine if there is a nearby source of neutrons — sub-atomic particles from the nucleus of an atom — and the direction they are coming from as well as the intensity of their source. The presence of sub-atomic particles could help to identify and count nuclear warheads, the researchers explained.

The technology is detailed in the article, Experimental demonstration and modeling of a robotic neutron detector with spectral and directional sensitivity for treaty verification, which appears in the journal Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment.