why is Micro-X's market cap still only aud $56.8M ( less than US$40M)?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2023/09/13/through-airport-security-in-30-seconds-thats-the-goal-of-this-new-technologyAerospace &Defense
DailyCover
Through Airport Security In 30 Seconds? That’sThe Goal Of This New Technology
Illustration by Monash University
Micro-X is developing an automated screening process that could save time and minimize stress, but it’s likely to be expensive.
an industrial park near Seattle’s airport, an Australian companycalled Micro-X is developing a system that could make air travelers’dreams come true: speedy security screening that promises minimalinteraction with TSA officers.
Micro-X is using new technology to redesign airport checkpoints toresemble self-checkout lanes at supermarkets. If it works as planned,Micro-X’s process would not only be faster, it would be lessstressful for passengers and Transportation Security Administrationemployees. Yet, in an environment where TSA often seems to be underfire for some shortcoming — poorperformance on tests for detecting weapons, making the experienceconfusing and unpleasant for travelers, and, especially, itsexpensive bloat — the new equipment may not satisfy critics. Itwould be pricey.
Micro-X’s target for the cost of the self-screening system isroughly twice that of the newest type of conventional security lanes,according to Brian Gonzales, Micro-X’s chief scientific officer andhead of its U.S. operation. This year, the TSA has already committedto pay up to $1.3 billion for about 1,200 CT scanners to screencarry-on bags. As for the Micro-X system, the hope is the cost wouldend up being “competitive” on a per-passenger basis, according toJohn Fortune, who oversees the project as manager of a Department ofHomeland Security technology-development program called Screening atSpeed.
The company’s design “breaks the mold,” Fortune tellsForbes. “It would really shake up the way a checkpoint isbuilt.”
Here’s how it would work. After getting their IDs checked,travelers enter an area with rows of booths, each big enough for twoadults. An avatar on a screen tells them to put their belongings inthe cabinet of aCT scanner that’s one-quarter the size of anything else on themarket. The scanner uses X-rays to create a 3-D image that’sautomatically analyzed for prohibited items by software powered bymachine-learning algorithms. Meanwhile, a camera system and anelectromagnetic body scanner examine the traveler and the avatarprompts them if they’ve forgotten to take something out of theirpockets — or seem to be hiding something.
TSA officers would step in only if the system detects a suspiciousitem or if a traveler needs help.
Micro-X is designing the screening pods so that if the CT scannerdetects a suspicious item in a traveler's carry-on bag, a TSA officerwould be able to open a door in the scanner on the outside of thebooth to examine the contents.
Micro-X
From 2020 through 2022, DHS committed $4.9 million for Micro-X todevelop its concept and deliver initial prototypes. In July, theagency awarded the company a contract extension worth up to $14million to build six screening booths, with the goal for the first tobe delivered for testing within the next 12 to 18 months.
Airport security officials, especially since 9/11, have beennavigating a delicate balance, weighing travelers’ convenience withthe imperative of keeping them safe. That task only grows harder whenmore people fly, and more people are flying. Air travel has bouncedback from pandemic doldrums, with a record 264 million people passingthrough airport security checkpoints during the summer travel season—2 million more than in the same period in 2019. Ifpassenger growth rates return to their pre-pandemic trajectory —about 4% annually — that means bigger challenges, Fortune says. “Atsome point you’re not going to be able to keep up with both theevolving threats, but also the number of travelers that continue togo through the system,” he says.
Micro-X promises its revamped checkpoints would keep foot trafficmoving, with passengers able to complete the screening process in anaverage time of 60 seconds and in as little as 30 seconds. Its designfeatures eight screening booths in the same space as the currentsingle-line lanes. That way, if a passenger dawdles or sets offalarms, other travelers could still flow through the remainingbooths.
Faster Future
DHS’ goal is for the self-service systemto be capable of screening 400 passengers per hour per lane, withless than 5% requiring officer intervention. Micro-X thinks it coulddo better — 500 passengers an hour per lane, Gonzales says. TSAwon’t disclose statistics on its current performance, but Gonzalessays his understanding is that 500 an hour would be well above theflow of PreCheck lanes, which he says tend to handle 300 an hour atbest. A jammed-up standard lane might only process 150 travelers anhour, he says.
The goal is to have seven TSA officers staffing a lane, down from11 currently, Gonzales says. If the image-analysis algorithms can bemade accurate enough, he says it may be possible to reduce that to asfew as three officers.
The system would reduce stress for officers. They would spend moretime helping passengers rather than conducting often tense pat-downsand bag searches. They could also be freed up to remotely examineimages of bags flagged by the detection algorithms.
The process could be particularly helpful at smaller airports withlight traffic. A single Micro-X pod could be all the capacity needed.
Take Two
DHS is also funding a project led by a Dutch company, Vanderlande,to develop a self-screening checkpoint with current technology. It’sadded a gating system and automated instructions to itstwo-lane checkpoint, which uses a conventional CT machine pairedwith a Rohde & Schwartzbody scanner kitted out with a virtual assistant that cuespassengers to check their pockets if the scanner picks up anything.
The Vanderlande project is further along than Micro-X’s. DHStested it this spring and hopes to launch a trial by year-end on thePreCheck lanes at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. Ithas some features that could speed up the flow of passengers —there are three stations where travelers line up to put their bags ona conveyor — but it doesn’t have the same potential to acceleratethe process as the system Micro-X is developing, Fortune says.
Fortune cautions that there’s much about the new technologiesthat still needs to be proved out.
Micro-X has already commercialized light, mobile medical X-raymachines based on the same technology in its CT scanner. StandardX-ray machines still work pretty much the same as they did when theywere first developed around the turn of the 20th century. A filamentheats up in a vacuum tube, similar to an old-fashioned light bulb,generating a stream of electrons that create X-rays when they’rerapidly slowed down by a dense metal. Micro-X has perfectedtechnology first developed by researchers at the University of NorthCarolina at Chapel Hill that applies an electric field to carbonnanotubes to generate a current of electrons. The benefits: its X-raytubes are about a quarter of the size and a tenth the weight ofstandard ones. It also provides more precise electronic control oftiming and dosing, the company says.
A closeup of Micro-X's baggage CT scanner.
Micro-X
The success of the self-screening security project could mean abig future for a small company. Micro-X had sales of $9.7 million inthe fiscal year that ended June 30. With a market capitalization ofjust $35 million on the Australian Securities Exchange, Gonzales saysit will need outside investment or partnerships to get the system tomarket.
The project also depends on Munich-basedVoxel Radar delivering on its claim that its next-generationmillimeter wave body scanner is capable of taking accurate images oftravelers while they’re moving in the booth and providing quickfeedback about items they’re carrying. Current millimeter wavescanners require travelers to stand still with their arms extended.
Another key will be whether detection algorithms can be createdthat accurately interpret the images that both types of scannerscreate.
Computer Vision
Image-analysis algorithms are already used with CT scanners todetect explosives in checked luggage. TSA told Forbes that75% to 80% of checked bags are cleared without human intervention.But carry-on bags are trickier. They need to be checked for a widervariety of banned items, including guns and knives.
It can be difficult for algorithms to pick up the shape of a gundepending on the orientation, or to recognize if a gun has beenbroken up into pieces, or those pieces are split among differentbags, says Norman Shanks, a baggage screening expert who ran securityat London Heathrow in the late 1990s. “I’m not that convincedthat we’ve got the image recognition for every prohibited item,”he tells Forbes. “It will come but we’re not there yet.”
While accuracy will need to be high and false-alarm rates low toachieve the reductions in checkpoint staffing that the Micro-Xproject envisions, it’s not clear that human beings pose stiffcompetition to detection algorithms. In tests in 2017, DHSinvestigators were able to smuggle mock weapons and explosives pastTSA officers at checkpoints atleast 70% of the time.
Still, cutting staff poses a risk, according to Shanks. It meansfewer officers who might notice if a traveler is acting suspiciously.“Technologists want to talk about technology being the answer foreverything, and it isn’t,” he says. Also needed are “the softskills of behavior detection and observation techniques.”
Another question is whether automated instructions will enableenough passengers to use the new systems without help. Experience hasshown that signs and videos are no substitute for a person givingdirections, says Jeffrey Price, an aviation security consultant andprofessor at Metropolitan State University of Denver, who calls it“one of the inside secrets of our industry.”
“You have to tell them what to do every time or else they standthere and get confused,” Price says of air travelers. “Even ifthey do nothing else other than walk down a corridor, you still haveto tell them to walk down the corridor.”
The holy grail of the industry is to boil down the process to justthat — do away with checkpoints and have passengers scannedcontinuously while walking. DHS has been funding research at thePacific Northwest National Laboratory to develop technology to makethat possible.
Fortune says a prototype for that dream may still be a couple ofyears away.
