By Calvin Biesecker
The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) is changing the focus of a key effort aimed at developing and producing X-Ray-based screening systems that can detect the presence of nuclear threat materials through shielding to instead continue development work but also explore other systems that industry has available that could possibly meet some of the detection requirements, according to agency officials.
Under the Cargo Advanced Automated Radiography System (CAARS) project, DNDO awarded three system design and architecture contracts in 2006 with the intention of eventually moving one or more of any successful efforts into production (Defense Daily, Sept. 14, 2006). Those awards went to American Science and Engineering [ASEI], L-3 Communications [LLL] and SAIC [SAI] and had the potential to be worth a combined $1.4 billion including production.
But along the way DNDO realized that the “maturity level” of the companies’ respective technologies being developed under CAARS wasn’t advanced enough to warrant a subsequent production phase, Bill Hagan, assistant director for the Transformational and Applied Research within DNDO, told Defense Daily this week.
Joel Rynes, who manages the Joint Integrated Non-Intrusive Inspection (JINII) program–of which CAARS is part of–cited some of the challenges as being the need for new accelerators and detectors that would be needed to obtain the necessary capability to meet the stiff detection requirements.
“So for a two-year acquisition program there was just too much development to get there in a reasonable amount of time,” Rynes said.
There’s also the challenge of finding the right trade-off between the footprint of a CAARS system, which at least in the original artist’s rendering provided by DNDO appeared to be significant, versus its detection capabilities, Hagan said.
And DNDO appears to be learning some lessons from its experience in the development of the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal program, a new-generation of passive radiation portal monitors that Congress wants the Department of Homeland Security to make sure represents a cost-effective solution to existing portal monitors. That program has been delayed for over a year, in part due to development difficulties but also to satisfy the congressional concerns.
DNDO hadn’t really compared how the CAARS technologies would fare compared to other systems other companies in the cargo screening industry were developing but plans to do so now, Rynes said..
So DNDO will continue working with its CAARS contractors to develop and demonstrate their technologies and in the meantime is preparing solicitations to test current cargo screening systems–or similar systems that will soon be available–to see how well they perform against Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) requirements to detect special nuclear and shielding materials.
These other systems may not be quite as capable but may still be able to get a portion of the nuclear threat screening job done, both officials said. Moreover, these other systems may also be able to do their more traditional job of screening cargo for contraband, such as stowaways, drugs and other illegal goods, in addition to helping better screen for nuclear materials, they said.
This approach may lead to getting more systems starting to be deployed possibly before 2012, they said. However, this is all to be determined and will have to await the results of testing, which is slated to begin later this year. Under CAARS, DNDO originally had hoped that the acquisition program would begin in FY ’08 and run through FY ’12 but the development challenges sidelined those expectations.
Hagan and Rynes also pointed out that DNDO is working “hand-in-hand” with CBP, which is the ultimate customer for the NII systems and which has the responsibility for screening cargo as it enters the United States. Rynes declined to say which inspection systems DNDO and CBP expect to start testing this year but did say that whatever CBP is buying now is a good bet to participate in the expanded program.
That means companies like OSI Systems [OSIS], SAIC, Britain’s Smiths Detection and even AS&E could benefit under the revised approach to nuclear threat screening.