The UK Ministry of defence awarded £2m across four projects for an autonomous security alarm and interdiction network to secure nuclear sites. Image contributed by hlopex via Shutterstock.

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has awarded £2m ($2.64m) in funds to find an autonomous security alarm and interdiction network (ASAIN) suitable to protect the UK’s aging nuclear facilities undergoing decommissioning.

The funded technologies will autonomously monitor, track and detect security breaches, reducing the cost of maintaining the sites while keeping “human operators out of harms way”, according to a release from the MoD, on 27 August 2024.

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Four different technologies are being funded by through the MoD’s Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), in the second phase for a programme focussed on finding solutions to reduce the immense burden of decommissioning nuclear power sites. The NDA’s planned expenditure on site programmes will be £3.9bn  according to the NDA’s Business Plan for 2023 to 2026.

“Keeping our sites safe and secure is absolutely critical to delivering our mission. Our estate spans 17 nuclear sites across the UK, made up of around 950 hectares of designated land on which over 800 buildings are located,” said NDA Innovation Delivery Manager Andrew Gray.

The specification for this funding, which came under the money-saving competition theme ‘Remote Monitoring of Sensitive Sites Phase 2: Security and Resilience’, stipulated that a successful ASAIN would be highly autonomous, but include a built in override functionality to allow an operator to control all system assets “safely and at will”.

The ASAIN technology is intended only to be used only at sites where defuelling is mostly complete, that are lower risk, and where “’nuclear security’ measures are no longer proportionate” according to a release from the MoD. 

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Successfully funded projects include efforts from Operational Solutions Ltd, Espanaro Ltd, ISS Aerospace, and Archangel Imaging. Initially, only £1.5m was to be made available, but this was increased to £2m after surveilling to quality and diversity of the proposals.