Leidos [LDOS] on Thursday said it has been selected by the Dominican Republic’s Punta Cana International Airport to provide a comprehensive suite of products to upgrade and integrate the security checkpoints.
The contract includes eight of the company’s ClearScan checkpoint computed tomography (CT) carry-on baggage scanners, eight ProPassage automated security lanes that are integrated with the CT systems, four ProVision 2 advanced imaging technology (AIT) body scanners, and the Mosaic platform to integrate the various security systems and connect with other airport operations. The airport already uses the company’s B220 explosives trace detectors (ETDs), which are typically used to resolve alarms.
The value of the award wasn’t disclosed but adds to the company’s international deployments of its various security detection technologies. The U.S. Transportation Security Administration almost exclusively uses the ProVision2 AIT systems and also has deployed the company’s ETDs.
Leidos is also competing to provide its ClearScan CT systems to TSA under the agency’s Checkpoint Property Screening System (CPSS), which is for screening carry-on bags at airport checkpoints. So far, TSA has only acquired CPSS systems from Analogic, which is using the Leidos ProPassage automated security lanes with its installations.
The upcoming installations at Punta Cana, which will begin this year with several lanes and be complete in the first half of 2023 with the remaining lanes, is “our real first entire Leidos checkpoint,” Bradley Buswell, the company’s senior vice president for security detection and automation, told Defense Daily
in a virtual interview. “We’re providing every piece of equipment at that checkpoint,” he said, adding that “we’re kind of dubbing this the Leidos lane and it will be the first time that we’ve really integrated everything together in one checkpoint.”
Regarding use of the Mosaic platform by the airport, Buswell said that Leidos is working with airport authorities to understand how they want to use the data, whether that’s to improve the passenger experience, enhance the efficiency of the screening process, or optimize use of the screening lanes based on expected passenger loads “to help them understand what they need to operate.”
The Punta Cana work will be a showcase for Leidos in terms of its complete checkpoint security detection equipment and integration capabilities for a system of systems deployment, Buswell said. The airport is “really excited” about the various applications that can be created with Mosaic to help the checkpoint screening process, he said, adding that Leidos is eventually hoping to have similar efforts in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
Punta Cana hosts more than four million visitors annually, Leidos said.