Here's an article from the latest TSAP newsletter.AUSTRALIA...

Here's an article from the latest TSAP newsletter.

AUSTRALIA TAKES LEAD IN NEXT GENERATION EDS SCREENING By Chris Yates

Accurate detection of explosive materials concealed in passenger baggage has always been problematic. But one Australian firm believes it has the answer with an inspection technique
called Quadrupole Resonance (QR). The technique involves baggage being subjected to
pulsed radio frequency energy which excites the nuclei of any explosive that may be in the
bag to respond with a return signal.

Such is the accuracy of this method of inspection that the firm in question, QRSciences of Perth,
Western Australia, has entered into a license agreement with US security systems giant L-3 Communications Security Systems Corporation, a subsidiary of L-3 Communications Inc, of
New York, New York to integrate QR with the latter company’s current range of airport security products possibly including the Computed Tomography (CT) based eXaminer product currently being deployed at US airports.Quadrupole Resonance (QR) is not an entirely new concept in so much as
InVision Technologies subsidiary Quantum Magnetics first trialled QR based machines in the mid 1990s. Those early machines exhibited excessively high false positive alarm rates and consequently did not find ready acceptance by the airport community.
Quantum had chosen in recent years to focus its QR activity on military applications. QRSciences, on the other hand, continued commercialisation of the technology, nowadays boasting that its hardware has an extremely high probability of detection rate in the region of 95 percent and a
low false alarm rate of typically below 3 percent, across a range of explosive materials including the traditionally hard to detect sheet explosives. L-3 Communications is one of only
two US vendors certified by the Transportation Security Administration
(TSA) to provide CT based Explosive Detection Systems (EDS) to US airports.
The other is InVision Technologies of Newark, California. Following the mass deployment of CT
EDS at US airports post the horrific events of 9/11, criticism has begun to mount over what are perceived to be high false positive alarm rates exhibited false positive rates can be as high as
30 percent. L-3 Communications may only have a short window of opportunity to exploit
the potential of QRSciences work in the area of QR since, at the end of October 2003, its arch rival Quantum Magnetics, received an aggregate award from the TSA of up to US$ 7.5 million to pursue research and development into the merging of QR and CT technologies into a hybrid screening solution. Of the total award amount, US$ 2.3 million has been funded.
Quantum parent InVision Technologies believes that by utilising the strengths of each technology, the resulting system will provide improved performance, with increased detection and
fewer false alarms. Meanwhile, InVision Technologies itself continues to focus on the marriage of Xray Diffraction and CT. In early 2003 InVision bought German company Yxlon International Security GmbH, a specialist vendor in the area of X-ray Diffraction technology. At the time of the acquisition, Sergio Magistri, Ph.D., InVision’s President and Chief Executive Officer,
commented, “We believe the acquisition of Yxlon will strengthen InVision's position
as the leader in the multi-billion dollar global EDS market for aviation security.
"Yxlon's diffraction technology is highly complementary to InVision's computed tomography technology and we expect that the combination will result in a superior EDS product.
InVision will also look to leverage Yxlon's core competencies in x-ray point and cargo screening." Dr. Magistri added, "We see some attractive synergies with Yxlon's x-ray
based NDT business. Both NDT and our EDS products rely heavily on x-ray technology, sophisticated image processing and automated detection of defects, anomalies and threats.
Furthermore, Yxlon has developed expertise in the development of 450 kilovolt x-ray components that are critical to cargo screening systems, which represents InVision's entry into this
growth area of security.” With the major of certified players in this part of the security marketplace now having set out their respective stalls, airport security operators have a
view of sorts of what benefit future EDS screening technologies may bring. Whatever emerges during the next eighteen months or so will, however, represent a mid-term solution to
a fundamental need to remove people from the screening process as much as is possible.
The majority of present day screening solutions require people to make decisions as to whether a given bag is safe for carriage on an aircraft. But research has shown that often times
it is these people that make the mistakes resulting in the screening process failing to stop potential threats to flights. Despite the undoubted advances in the technology used to screen passenger baggage that have occurred in recent years, so called image clutter remains a significant problem. In layman terms this simply means that operators find it difficult to identify threat objects amidst everything else in the bag. The analogy of a typical business
travellers’ briefcase serves to illustrate the point. This may contain a laptop, portable printer, associated power chargers and leads. When the image of such a bag is displayed on a
screen, it remains extremely difficult to pick out the tell tale signs of all but the
most obvious weapons. Technical challenges aside, other issues that conspire against accurate
detection of threat objects are, in the main, related to human factors.
Security screeners are expected to perform a difficult job in often times less than ideal operating conditions and in as short a time as possible. Combine this with potential personal factors that may be praying on someone’s mind and it is easy to see why mistakes can
be made. The answer, say many specialists in the field, is a much greater degree of
automation in the screening process. In this respect QRSciences believes it has
the answer since its hardware solution dispenses entirely with the need for operators to inspect images. Instead the presence or otherwise of explosive materials is indicated by means of a
simple and unambiguous red, amber or green traffic light display that requires no interpretation.
L-3 Communications has also bought into other advanced screening solutions during the past 14 months or so. In November 2002 it announced its intention Amherst, Massachusetts based
Millivision, a global leader in millimeter wave imaging technology and the development
of millimeter wave cameras. Millimeter wave detection is being touted as the next best thing for the screening of people for concealed weapons. "Millivision gives us an accelerated
product which, when enhanced by our existing military millimeter wavelength technology, will allow us to quickly bring to market a new important and evolving security product for airports,
federal buildings and commercial facilities that are vulnerable," said Frank C. Lanza, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of L-3 Communications. He noted that L-3 expects to introduce a
walk-through scanner utilising this technology for applications in the security market in 2003.
Jeffery Alholm, Millivision's Chief Executive Officer said, "This represents a validation of our technology and provides us with access to the marketing strength of the world's leading security
systems provider. We believe that our millimeter wave scanning systems will save many lives, reduce travel stress, and re-instill in the travelling public a sense of confidence and safety."
Following the many mergers and acquisitions in the aviation security industry post the horrific events of September 11, 2001, the research and development effort to produce the next generation
technologies has been immense and a range of new an exciting solutions designed to stop weapons being smuggled aboard aircraft are beginning to emerge. Time will tell which will become the dominant technologies in years to come.


Cheers Leo