Battelle has introduced a next-generation autonomous biological detection system that it is offering for a Defense Department program and hopes to offer for other security and industry applications, the company said on Monday.
The company is offering its Resource Effective BioIdentification System (REBS) for the Pentagon’s Joint Biological Tactical Detection System (JBTDS) and said the technology could also be a candidate for the Department of Homeland Security’s Generation 3 BioWatch system. A Request for Proposal for the lightweight, manportable, JBTDS was released in February.
The REBS system runs all the time and automatically collects aerosol samples from the surrounding environment and then optically analyses the samples for bio-hazards and biological warfare agents. Battelle said the operating costs for the system are less than one dollar per day per unit with an average cost to analyze each sample at just four cents.
Battelle estimates that customers would save about $56 million per 1,000 REBS units deployed compared to existing systems.
The unit price for the system ranges between $125,000 and $200,000 depending on the library of agents that a customer wants REBS to test against and the order quantity, Matthew Shaw, Battelle’s vice president and general manager of the CBRNE defense business unit, tells HSR.
In addition to the low operating cost, Shaw says REBS has the ability to add new agents that can be detected. For examples, he says, it can take months to develop new assays to detect a new severe acute respiratory syndrome virus whereas once Battelle has the signature of the virus it can update REBS within 24 hours.
Battelle has been developing and manufacturing biological detection systems for the past 25 years. The company’s technology is the core engine in the Pentagon’s Joint Biological Point Detection System (JBPDS), which is contracted to Britain’s Chemring Group. Battelle is bidding as a prime contractor for the JBTDS program, for which bids were due in late March.
The company has sold a few of its REBS systems to industry users that need to monitor air quality in sanitary manufacturing operations.
Battelle, using its own funding, has tested REBS with DHS and at the Army’s Fort Bliss to gain operational data. Shaw says that DHS tested REBS in Boston’s subway system without any involvement from Battelle.
“REBS performed very well given the lack of intervention [by Battelle] with the system,” Shaw says.
REBS weighs about 35 pounds and is the size of a large microwave oven. Networking of the system is standard so that units can be monitored remotely.
As for the Generation 3 BioWatch system, DHS appears to be in a holding pattern to determine whether to proceed with further development and an acquisition program following years of delay. The current BioWatch system is manually intensive and slow, requiring daily retrievals of samples to be taken to laboratories for analysis.
The Generation 3 program is supposed to provide for lower operating costs and real-time detection and alerts of biological threats in and around major urban areas.