Enhanced Data Authentication System: Converting Requirements to a Functional Prototype

The Enhanced Data Authentication System (EDAS) is a technical concept to securely “branch” measurement data from operator-owned instrumentation to a Safeguards inspectorate, while guaranteeing the integrity of the operator communication link. While Safeguards normally depend on measurements that are fully independent from those of the operator, certain situations may call for the sharing of information from facility systems for both operations and verification purposes. An inspector must be confident that this branched information is a secure, true, and complete replica of the operator instrumentation. At the same time, an operator must have the assurance that the branching does not introduce an unacceptable risk to facility operations. The EDAS project is a joint collaboration between the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy, the Institute for Transuranium Elements of the European Commission Joint Research Centre, the U.S. Department of Energy, and Sandia National Laboratories. Recognizing the special and conflicting requirements of the inspector and the operator, we have broken EDAS development into two phases. An initial EDAS prototype, focused on inspector requirements, was tested in a laboratory setting using representative instrumentation based on serial (RS232) communication. Results of these tests show that EDAS is able to meet inspector requirements. Current development emphasizes the operator concerns: establishing the complete set of requirements, designing and implementing a solution, and testing performance. In this paper we focus on the second phase. We have developed an improved functional prototype that incorporates operator requirements. Considering these requirements, we show how they motivated the selection of our chosen embedded platform and accompanying Linux operating system. For software, we used open source libraries for communications and to encrypt and authenticate the data. We plan an installation and field test of the EDAS prototype at a facility in the United Kingdom in late 2013 to demonstrate the EDAS concept.

THOMAS Maikael;  BALDWIN George;  HYMEL Ross;  SMEJKAL Andreas;  SCHWALBACH Peter;  RUE Morgan;  DECHAMP Luc;  GONCALVES Joao; 

2014-02-07

ESARDA

JRC83183

978-92-79-32730-8,   

1831-9424,