McLEAN, VA—The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) sees potential for including open architecture standards in some of its existing security equipment within the next year while beginning to infuse a more open systems architecture in the design of newer systems that might be acquired in the next few years as part of recapitalization projects, agency officials said at technical exchange meeting with industry and other government officials.

The agency isn’t looking to move to all of its systems, nor entire systems, to open standards at once but wants to develop a long-term approach to this working with industry and other stakeholders, Jill Vaughan, assistant administrator for TSA’s Office of Security Capabilities, said at the meeting hosted by MITRE Corp.’s Homeland Security Systems Engineering and Development Institute (HSSEDI).

Vaughan told attendees that she wants “to find ways to define some standards. We’re not going to solve the architecture puzzle all at one time and I think if we try to do that we’re not going to get anywhere very quickly. So I’d like to figure out modular components potentially that we can focus on…with a very long-term vision in mind.”

The purpose of the meeting at MITRE was to give stakeholders insight into TSA’s approach at the moment to open systems architecture, answer questions, and create the foundation for continued dialogue with industry. Vendors that sell transportation security equipment to TSA for use at airports are concerned that the move to an open architecture approach might mean giving up intellectual property rights and trade secrets while also upsetting their business models.

For other companies, however, TSA’s movement toward open system architecture could open new opportunities such as supplying the agency with automated threat detection algorithms that would be installed on the checkpoint X-ray detection systems supplied by a prime vendor that currently controls the technology in their box.

Having one company to solve a problem under the current model “is not a good position to be in any longer from a threat perspective,” Vaughan said. “We need to have multiple opportunities to have different folks trying to solve these very complex problems” and to do so faster than is now the case.

TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger. Photo: TSA
TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger. Photo: TSA

As a show of TSA’s commitment to open systems architecture, Peter Neffenger, the agency’s administrator, spoke at the meeting. Sticking to the theme of a dialogue with industry, Neffenger asked how can screening equipment be upgraded and integrated “in a way that allows for as much participation as possible,” adding that he wants “lots and lots of competition because I think I get the best answer.”

With the exception of the body scanners and software upgrades to equipment, Neffenger said that most of the equipment at the checkpoint is the same as was present on or after 9/11. He said TSA is approaching a “full block obsolescence” of its equipment at the same time a number of airports and airlines are considering rebuilding or improving terminals.

“This gives us an opportunity to do something very different in a checkpoint environment,” Neffenger said. “Open architecture could allow more participation and competition.”

Neffenger said that he understands investments that vendors have made in their respective system and technologies, but said “I think there is a way we can both feel comfortable and advance beyond what we currently have.” New ways of doing business will be necessary, he said, if the volume of passenger traffic continues to increase at the nation’s airports while the complexity of threats keeps increasing.

Keith Goll, senior technical adviser in Vaughan’s office, told Defense Daily that during the next year there may be some opportunities working with legacy screening equipment to make incremental improvements using common standards to incorporate things like common operator workstations and graphical user interfaces. These types of improvements could make it easier to train Transportation Security Officers on, say, different X-ray systems by providing a common workstation.

Once recapitalization efforts begin with screening systems, this could present opportunities to design in common standards that enable open architecture, Goll said.

Charles Hone, who is with HSSEDI’s Open Screening System Architecture project that is supporting TSA, said that the project isn’t looking to create new standards at the moment but rather work with industry to identify existing ones that are published, popular and publicly available.

At the best of TSA, the near-term focus of the project is checkpoint and checked baggage screening, Hone said.

As for benefits to industry, Vaughan said TSA wants to “stimulate opportunity” by creating “iterative cycles” in the acquisition process to improve system components “along the way.” This will “offer more consistent opportunities for industry to work with us” as opposed to having long spells between major acquisitions. “It’s really about having the acquisition cycle become a little bit shorter and drive toward additional opportunities for folks to be innovative and work toward improving what we have.”