UPPER MARLBORO, Md.–In an attempt to take people screening to an entire new level, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology (S&T) branch last month began a demonstration of sensor and data fusion technologies that one day may automatically detect if individuals are contemplating hostile actions based on biological changes that may or may not be visible to the naked eye.
S&T has been doing the initial development and integration work on the Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST) program for about a year. The program is measuring changes in a person’s biological attributes, such as their body heat, skin presence, breathing patterns, heart rate and micro-facial expressions, to determine malintent, Robert Burns, the FAST program manager within S&T’s Human Factors Division, says at a briefing for media and FAST participants about the experiments. Measuring physiological and behavioral attributes avoids random profiling, he says.
The data is being collected via sensors from stand-off ranges–several feet or more in the current experiment–and then analyzed by sophisticated algorithms that are still being developed to ultimately fuse the various sensor outputs to determine if a person may mean to do harm.
FAST is a decision aid that would help a security guard or officer make a determination, Burns says. However, humans get tired or their attention wanes, whereas the technology being integrated into FAST doesn’t, says Sharla Rausch, director of the Human Factors Division.
DHS initiated the FAST program about 15 months ago as a high-risk, potentially high-payoff attempt to see if technology can be used and or developed that can aid security officers–typically those who would man some type of checkpoint or venue entrance–in determining whether a given person should be pulled aside for additional screening. That additional screening might consist of a security officer asking questions and more sensors being used to help determine if a person does in fact pose some sort of threat.
As one of S&T’s Homeland Innovative Prototypical Solutions efforts, FAST program officials are trying to deliver prototype demonstrations that result in “game changing” technologies over a two to five-year period.
Ultimately S&T hopes that the technologies developed and integrated under FAST contribute to higher throughputs of people into a venue or through a checkpoint and more valid referrals for secondary inspection. While current testing is being done in the mobile lab, eventually such a lab could be used for special security events but in other applications the sensors would be part of the fixed infrastructure.
For the recent testing that took place at an equestrian center here in a semi-rural area of Maryland outside of Washington, D.C., 140 test subjects were shuttled one-at-a-time through the FAST mobile lab over several days. The people only knew that they were part of a security screening demonstration, although some were given “items” to smuggle so that as they were being queried by security officers at primary and secondary inspection points inside the lab, their bodies’ physiological reactions were monitored. Program researchers in a nearby command lab then use that data to create baselines against which they can measure the performance of the sensors and data fusion algorithms.
This fall S&T plans to do additional FAST tests in the lab with 200 test subjects–which is a number that provides a statistically relevant sample–to further enhance their data algorithms and sensor systems. Then again next spring, the test will be repeated with 200 more subjects.
In the 2009, 2010 time frame is when more robust data fusion efforts will take place. Right now for the demonstration it takes about a minute for the sensor outputs to be analyzed, which currently requires a person in the loop. Eventually the goal is real-time, fully automated analysis.
Equipment and Contractors
For the current tests the FAST mobile lab is equipped with a thermal imaging camera provided by FLIR Corp. [FLIR] that is combined with software t analyze the changes in a person’s body heat as he or she stands still while a primary security officer asks specific questions. In addition, a light detection and ranging radar system, called the BioLIDAR that was developed by Digital Signal Corp., is used to observe surface changes on a person’s neck or face so that respiratory and cardiovascular patterns can be monitored and measured.
Digital Signal has been developing its BioLIDAR, in part at least under a contract from the Pentagon’s Biometric Task Force, for various applications. The system is able to do 3D face recognition from over 50 meters away in addition to picking up bio-signals from people’s bodies.
As the FAST program moves along, S&T will utilize additional sensors and technologies.
The mobile lab, and a related command center, was integrated by Battelle Memorial Institute under a one-year, $1.7 million contract. Battelle also acquired the test subjects. Draper Laboratory is working under a one-year, $2.6 million contract to do the data fusion for all of the sensors. Both contracts are currently being negotiated for extensions.
Future experiments under FAST will also look at using a camera that is integrated with algorithms to see how well technology can be used to observe micro-facial expressions– which are over and done with in an instant on a person’s face–to create another input into the data fusion algorithms so that the ultimate system being developed can more accurately predict intent.
As for whether technology can be used to automatically interpret micro-facial expressions for behavioral intent, “it’s possible,” Paul Ekman, the leading authority on the micro-facial expressions, tells TR2. But it will take investing money into the research that so far hasn’t been done, he says. Ekman has provided DHS advice on the FAST effort.
Other attributes that will be tested in the future include gestures and other body movements, S&T’s Burns says.
S&T’s Human Factors Division has also awarded some small contract to possibly bring other technologies into the FAST testing at some point. One is a chemical sensor being developed by researchers at the Univ. of Pennsylvania that can sniff out odors on a person. Those odors change depending on a person’s emotional state, according to the research.
Under another contract, Veridical Research and Design Corp. is investigating how changes in a person’s pupils can be used to show deception. When someone is under stress or is thinking hard, their pupils dilate. Veridical is trying to model if someone’s pupils are dilating because they are thinking hard or because they are nervous, a company official tells TR2.
The foundation behind FAST is a relatively new theory called Malintent. There are various cues that underpin malintent, such as cardiovascular, respiratory, thermal, body movements, and more, says Jennifer Martin, a consultant with MRAC who helped develop the theory. FAST combines the cues to determine if malintent exists, she says.