USA TODAY International Edition
Firms pursue ‘ new ideas’ for airport screening
TSA trying to close security loopholes
David Fine is trying to revolutionize aviation security. Again.
For 20 years, Fine, an inventor, worked to make airplanes safer by developing technology that detects luggage bombs.
Now he’s trying to do it faster.
Fine’s idea: Screen dozens of suitcases at once instead of one at a time.
A machine being built by Fine’s CyTerra Corp. would use pressure to squeeze explosives particles out of aluminum containers that hold up to 100 suitcases. Hundreds of bags could be checked in minutes if the Pressure Activated Sampling System works.
Fine’s efforts are part of a wave of research underway that could transform airport security — and passengers’ trips through checkpoints — as the government looks at experimental technology.
“ The equipment in airports is 15 years old. You’ve got to have new ideas,” Fine says.
The research is being encouraged and in some cases funded by the Transportation Security Administration in an effort to close security loopholes and speed up screening.
A $465,000 TSA grant last year enabled Fine’s Orlando- based company to resume research that had been shelved for several years due to lack of money.
“After 9/11, funding for new ideas in airport security disappeared. All the money at TSA was used to implement the existing technology,” Fine says. Now, he says, “ For the 8 rst time people with Prototype: Shoe scanner could be used in airport security. Research is being encouraged and sometimes funded by the TSA. new ideas have the opportunity to explore them and make them into reality.”
Manhattan II project
Devices under development would check bottles for liquid combustibles and shoes for explosives. New mini- cameras would also check cargo holds for stowaways.
The agency’s “ Manhattan II” project has given 10 companies, including CyTerra, $10 million in total to make luggage scanning faster and more reliable.
Two other companies got $ 7.4 million last month to build machines that are better at 8 nding bombs in carry-on bags than the Xrays nowused at checkpoints.
Some have criticized TSA for not developing such technologies sooner. Lawmakers such as Rep. Peter DeFazio, D- Ore., criticize the agency for screening passengers with “ 1970s technology” that can’t detect plastic bombs or liquid explosives used to blow up subway cars and a bus in London in July.
The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general warned this year that screeners were not getting better at 8 nding weapons and that improvement may require new technology.
But that raises
As TSA engineers test devices in conditions that mimic the crush of airport traf 8 c, they’re 8 nding that some promising machines wilt under the strain.
The agency recently checked out a machine used in other countries to scan shoes for explosives. When 20 to 30 TSA testers took turns standing on it at the agency’s Atlantic City lab, “ the equipment started wearing down,” TSA chief technology of 8 cer Clifford Wilke says.
The need for speed adds promise to technology such as CyTerra’s Pressure Activated Sampling System. Company president Fine says it could eventually replace the luggage scanners now in place at most large airports.
Those machines, bought quickly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, have drawn complaints at airports such as Washington, D. C.’ s Dulles its own challenges. for scanning luggage too slowly and delaying L ights.
The problem: TSA luggage scanners use X- rays to look inside bags. They identify possible explosives by their density. That causes a lot of false alarms for objects such as peanut butter, and requires a security screener to inspect every suitcase that sets off an alarm.
Renowned physicist Bogdan Maglich proposes another solution — the same one used by the U.S. Armyto 8 nd buried land mines.
Land mine technology
Maglich, CEO of HiEnergy Technologies of Irvine, Calif., says his $500,000 Stoichiometric Explosive Detection and Con 8 rmation System 8 nds small explosives in a suitcase in six to 10 seconds. By analyzing chemical composition of materials, the system can tell with 97.5% certainty whether a suitcase contains explosives, Maglich says.
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority in Philadelphia bought two HiEnergy machines in June to use on unattended packages found in subways and buses, and the TSA gave the company $367,000 last year.
But that doesn’t mean the technology is ready for an airport.
Maglich says the TSA wants a machine that can detect 300 grams of explosives— about two- thirds of a pound. “ We are more comfortable with 2 pounds,” he adds.
As Maglich waits to hear whether the TSA will give him $ 450,000, he worries that the agency isn’t expecting to deploy new technology for several years.
“ We can do it in a much shorter time — a year,” he says. “ But it depends on how much money we get.”
Like Maglich’s luggage scanner, a lot of technology being applied to aviation security has been used by other government agencies or for non- security purposes — in bits and pieces, here and there.
For instance, a bottle scanner built by Senspex of New Mexico uses 1920s technology to analyze the chemical compounds of liquids to 8 nd explosives and L ammables stored in bottles.
Molecular structure of liquids
Recent innovations such as compact lasers enabled Senspex to condense equipment that occupies an entire lab into a suitcase- sized detector. The $30,000 Ram-On 140RBSD compares a liquid’s molecular structure to a library of about 30 combustible liquids installed in the machine’s software.
“ It’s not a technology that has to be proven because it’s been proven,” Senspex vice president Janelle Anthone says. “ The difference is with lasers and ( light- measuring) spectrometers becoming more compact, we can package the system into a smaller footprint that can be used outside the lab.”
Massachusetts-based Analogic Corp. may use part of a $ 3.8 million TSA grant to shrink its 5- foot- wide bomb detector so it 8 ts better into an airport checkpoint. The company’s Carry-on Baggage Real- Time Assessment ( COBRA) machine uses the same high- tech X- ray technology that’s in luggage scanners to screen carry-on bags. uTSA’s