By Calvin Biesecker
A new standard being sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that will allow software firms the ability to access data from airport security imaging technologies such as X-ray machines should be ready this summer, allowing third party vendors to eventually begin offering DHS and other customers software products that will greatly improve the capabilities of current scanning systems, according to officials from Guardian Technologies International [GDTI].
Once the Digital Imaging in Communications for Security Standard (DICOS) is adopted, “you will have a common playing filed and [then] you have the capability where a third party solution like our PinPoint [software] product can be readily deployed against any manufacturer’s scanning platform,” Michael Trudnak, chairman and CEO of Guardian Technologies, told sister publication TR2.
Currently, the manufacturers of scanning systems such as the new Advanced Technology (AT) X-ray systems and other screening technologies basically have “closed operating systems” that don’t allow third parties to integrate or interface with their machines, Trudnak said. This allows the manufacturers to prevent their systems from becoming a “commodity,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Transportation Security Administration is pushing the screening technology manufacturers, in particular of AT X-ray systems, to add the ability to automatically detect liquids and ultimately liquid explosives. However, while the automatic threat detection capability is touted as a planned feature of the AT systems the agency is buying, it has not progressed as quickly as TSA would like.
By having closed operating systems, the manufacturers “control the environment and no third party can enter into that discussion, [so] they don’t have to perform,” Trudnak said. “They set their own hurdle rate and it’s one they know they can jump over easily. So they have no incentive to do anything other than what they are doing, which is the reason why the government is pushing hard on DICOS because it takes control away from the manufacturers and invests it back in the customer where it belongs.”
Trudnak also said that having closed operating systems currently limits the government’s choices in purchasing technology. For example, he said, when TSA realized that the conventional single-view TRX X-ray systems couldn’t do automated threat detection, the manufacturers offered the multi-view AT X-ray systems that cost significantly more money, thereby generating more revenues.
The manufacturers have shown little interest in partnering with software developers like Guardian because they can make more money selling the AT systems rather than offering a less expensive conventional X-ray system integrated with software that has threat detection and identification capabilities, Trudnak believes.
That will change once the DICOS standard is accepted, he believes.
Last summer the DHS Science and Technology Directorate selected the National Electrical Manufacturers Association to write the DICOS standard. The standard will give third party algorithm developers a format to uniformly access data from screening systems so that they can do the image processing that will improve their software. The standard is basically an interface between the hardware and software.
Still, even if DICOS is accepted as a standard this summer, that doesn’t mean the market dynamics will suddenly change. As with all the systems and technologies DHS and TSA are interested in, they generally go through lengthy and time consuming test processes. Trudnak said that there will need to be a methodology for how the DHS Transportation Security Laboratory approves PinPoint and other software solutions. Moreover, there currently are no standards for actually testing automated detection, according to Trudnak.
PinPoint is a threat detection and identification software that Guardian said can be integrated into existing conventional and Advanced Technology X-ray systems used to screen carry-on bags at airport checkpoints, computed tomography-based Explosives Detection Systems used to screen checked baggage, and even whole body imaging systems, to significantly enhance the performance of these types of scanning systems. Integrated with a whole body imager, the software can distinguish between a person’s keys and potential explosives, Guardian said. The company said that PinPoint has been ready to go the past few years and has been through some testing at the TSL.
Guardian and the TSL have an active Cooperative Research and Development Agreement that the company wants to take advantage of to have the lab conduct more testing and then file a formal report on the performance of PinPoint, Trudnak said. He expects to have an answer this month on whether the TSL will go forward with testing. This is part of the process Guardian will have to go through if DICOS standard is adopted and so it wants to get a jumpstart on things, he added. Eventually, the software would need to be pilot tested in an airport, he said.
Guardian co-chaired the DICOS panel that developed the draft standard for X-ray technologies and is chairing another panel that DHS recently set up to adapt the standard for whole body imaging systems, Trudnak said. That panel was created after the failed Christmas day bombing attempt, he said.