The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) last Thursday released its first ever roadmap for open architecture, an effort that agency hopes will increase competition and innovation, and lower costs for the screening equipment it purchases and deploys to safeguard the nation’s air transportation system.
The roadmap doesn’t give any timelines for when the agency expects to begin introducing modular open system architectures into its various screening systems but is meant to provide “holistic direction to guide TSA’s Open Architecture goals and objectives,” David Pekoske, the agency’s administrator, says in an introduction to the 19-page document.
A key goal outlined in the roadmap is the establishment of the technical standards that will allow current and future security systems to easily plug-and-play with hardware and software developed by vendors other than the original equipment. An example could be a software algorithm provided by a third-party that results in lower false alarm rates or improved threat detection.
Two objectives discussed under the technical standards include adopting a common data format called Digital Imaging and Communications in Security, or DICOS, which allows the sharing of quality image data from a screening system for TSA to share with the vendor community. That data is valuable in allowing third parties to develop and test solutions that would enhance the screening equipment.
TSA says it first plans to adopt DICOS for its checkpoint computed tomography (CT) scanners, which it is deploying at some U.S. airports. The checkpoint CT systems provide operators a 3-D image of bag’s contents and allow passengers to leave their laptops and liquids inside their luggage.
Another objective is the adoption of a “common and accessible interface format through Open Platform Software Library (OPSL),” which the roadmap describes as a set of “Application Program Interfaces, standardizing how software can interact with each other to enable interoperability between screening solutions. OPSL will an enable an interoperable SoS (system of systems) in which TSA and industry partners can more easily incorporate new solutions into the screening environment.”
TSA on Feb. 23 is hosting a virtual industry day for the second increment of its checkpoint property screening system (CPSS), which refers to the checkpoint CT systems. One key agenda item will be the functional requirements document.
Tim Rayner, who runs his own security consulting firm Bagtronics, LLC, told Defense Daily last Friday if the requirements document mandates open architecture and specifically where it must be applied, “then I think we can open a bottle of champagne, although there’s still battle to come.”
If the requirements document doesn’t mandate open architecture for CPSS, “then it’s going to be hard, because in essence the third parties have just been disempowered. We just go back to how it’s always been,” he said.
How it’s always been is that TSA and other purchasers of security detection equipment are locked into the producer or original equipment manufacturer for future upgrades and enhancements to the security systems.
Eliminating vendor lock would do a number of things including improve security effectiveness, introduce innovative technologies more quickly, which would improve the passenger experience through enhancements that mean fewer false alarms, expand the market to new competitors, simplifying processes and user interfaces for TSA’s officers, allow for tailored acquisitions, and improve cybersecurity and data analytics, the roadmap says.
So far, TSA has purchased checkpoint CT systems from Analogic and Smiths Detection. Those companies as well as Leidos [LDOS], and a small company called Integrated Defense and Security Solutions, are eligible for different categories of CPSS systems to be procured in the next competition.
There remains a lot of resistance within the main security detection equipment manufacturers to open architecture because of the threat it poses to their revenue stream, several industry backers of the open architecture approach told Defense Daily. However, they said these companies will be able to compete for any enhancements to each other’s equipment just as smaller third parties will.