Advanced Technology (AT) X-Ray machines that will replace current X-Ray machines at aviation security checkpoints will be the main platform that gives screening officers better tools to find “bad things” in passengers’ carry on bags, a senior Transportation Security Agency (TSA) official says.
“AT technology is probably the foundation for the checkpoint moving forward,” Mike Golden, TSA’s chief technology and information officer and assistant administrator for operational process and technology, tells the American Association of Airport Executives Aviation Security Summit. Golden says the X-Ray AT machines “give us phenomenal imaging quality” and will have algorithms that permit automatic detection.
Automated Explosives Detection Systems (Auto-EDS) will have a role at some checkpoints depending on the application but AT “gives us the greatest opportunity to ensure that our officers have the tools that they need to detect all the bad things that people try to bring through,” Golden says.
In October TSA awarded contracts to X-Ray AT manufacturers Smiths Detection and OSI Systems [OSIS] and to Auto-EDS manufacturers Analogic [ALOG] and Reveal Imaging Technologies. While TSA is keeping its options open regarding Auto-EDS, an official from one of the companies supplying that technology believes that sales of these units will remain minimal as the agency puts its resources behind X-Ray AT.
Golden says that TSA is also working with the X-Ray AT companies to remove bags that are alarmed on from the normal channel after exiting the system so that throughput can be maintained. This appears to work off a recent development by Smiths Detection called iLane, which would divert carry-on bags that have been alarmed away from the passenger and toward a parallel secondary inspection lane (TR2, Oct. 17). Of course this is real estate dependent at many checkpoints, industry officials say.
X-Ray AT machines may also find a role to assist in checked baggage screening as an adjunct to EDS machines, Golden says.
Golden also touched on several other technologies that TSA expects to focus additional resources. For example, the agency has been acquiring handheld Fido explosive trace detection devices from ICx Technologies [ICXT] to assist in screening liquids and in October also acquired 23 of Smiths’ handheld SABRE devices for mobile explosives trace and vapor detection. TSA plans to bring a third manufacturer on line, General Electric [GE] with its MobileTrace device and is looking at additional devices, Golden says.
Handhelds give TSA the ability to be “flexible and nimble” and to move and change things around, Golden says. These offer both primary and secondary screening options, he says.
Another new capability for TSA is the whole body imaging systems that are being pilot tested at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. TSA currently is testing American Science & Engineering’s [ASEI] SmartCheck backscatter based X-Ray system and L-3 Communications’ [LLL] ProVision active millimeter wave imaging system at Sky Harbor. Pilots are planned at Los Angeles International Airport and JFK International Airport in New York.
TSA will be pushing “extremely hard” in 2008 to continue developing the whole body imagers, Golden says. Currently the millimeter wave and backscatter systems are being used for secondary screening but TSA plans to collect data through a pilot test using the machines in a primary screening mode, he adds.
Hopefully the future checkpoint will be calmed down and pushed out, Golden says. He notes that stand-off millimeter wave imaging systems, which are being pilot tested, may have a role here. The future checkpoint might look like a “hallway” for both entry and exit with much of the screening transparent to passengers, Roger Dickey, TSA’s deputy chief technology officer, tells AAAE.
TSA also hopes to advance its behavioral analysis programs that currently rely on trained personnel to spot suspicious persons by possibly automating these functions, Adam Tsao, Golden’s chief of staff, tells AAAE. As the Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques program matures, “we’ll loot at automating some of these functions,” he says.
Automated SPOT
MG: When you look the high volume type of system, looking at number of mfgs, capabile of 1K bags per hour. We’re looking at AT technology for baggage. When you talk about a dynamic risk based screening system, if a tipper (AT) machines have the capability of doing certain things for us and we have the ability to reroute bags for other types of technologies it’s truly a system of technologies. It’s not just a single box.
So one of the things were looking at is setting up an integration facility…where we can actually start testing these concepts. What we need to be able to do is come up with viable solutions within an inline system that allows you to switch protocols of machines and route those to the appropriate place.
RD: we’re absolutely looking at a systems approach and strategically certifying systems.