Qylur Security Systems, a small company that has stayed out of sight since forming in 2005, this week introduced a new checkpoint security system that allows individuals to screen their own bags while automating various other steps including ticket taking and access control.
The California-based company’s product is the Qylatron, a configurable and customizable system consisting of multiple pods that can serve several individuals simultaneously, allowing them to scan their own bags with a combination of X-ray, trace and nuclear detection technology while also going through other steps as part of an entry process.
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| Qylatron with people inserting bags. Photo: Qylur |
Qylur expects the first commercial deployments of the system to occur early next year with Brazil, which is preparing for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics, as a strong near-term candidate for sales.
“This is not a bag scanner. It is a whole customer entry experience,” Lisa Dolev, founder and CEO of Qylur, told Defense Daily’s sister publication Homeland Security Report.
The first six years of the company’s existence were spent creating the technology concept and conducting the research and development around it, Dolev said. During that time the company also built two prototypes, she said. The next 18 months or so included field trials of the first production version of the machine in various venues, including Liberty State Park in New Jersey across from the Statue of Liberty, for checkpoint screening at Rio de Janeiro airport in Brazil, and a stadium in the United States.
Dolev said the field tests were at a range of venue types because the “inspiration” for the Qylatron was “first and foremost for soft targets with mass attendance” in mind such as stadiums, arenas and amusement parks. She said the trials demonstrated that the system works as planned.
Data from the different sensors is fused together with software algorithms to improve the probability of detecting threat materials and weapons and the system can also be connected to a command and control center. Also, the integration of ticket taking and access control provides operational efficiencies.
This combination of sensor fusion, ticket taking and access control allows for the system to do risk-based screening, Dolev said.
While Qylur doesn’t do identity management, its technology can connect to the necessary databases depending on the customer and their demands, to help enhance security, Dolev said.
On the company’s website, the honeycomb-shaped Qylatron stands a little taller than a person and consists of five cells surrounding a central core.
In a video demonstration on the website, contactless readers scan individual boarding passes, then users place their bags in one of five separate pods or cells for scanning. As the Qylatron scans the contents of bags for various threats such as explosives and weapons, individuals walk through some type of body scanner or metal detector on either side of the machine, and then retrieve their bags from the opposite end of the scanning cell after they have their boarding passes read again.
The Qylatron screens bags five times faster than existing systems, and can reduce security costs with 50 percent less staffing all the while improving the customer experience, Qylur said.
Qylur already has Safety Act designation from the Department of Homeland Security for the Qylatron, giving it limited liability protection in the marketplace as a counter-terrorism product.