Testing and evaluating a prototype self-screening solution for passengers at aviation checkpoints is currently estimated to begin in late fiscal year 2023, says the Transportation Security Administration.
TSA’s Innovation Task Force and the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate have been examining the potential of passenger self-screening concepts since at least early 2020 and have sought ideas from industry as well.
Existing technologies are mature enough on their own to make up the components of a self-screening pod or system but what’s lacking is the integration of these parts “so that they can talk to each other and inform each other in kind of the Internet of Things,” Matt Gilkeson, director of TSA’s ITF, said earlier this month at the annual AVSEC conference hosted by the United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization.
“So, that where the majority of the work needs to occur,” he said.
The ITF is open to less mature technologies that could have a role in a self-screening system, he said.
A TSA spokeswoman told HSR that following a Broad Agency Announcement from DHS S&T in January 2020 for the Self-Screening Accelerator Challenge, and a follow-up industry day a month later, the agency is still awaiting prototypes for evaluation. A field demonstration is currently estimated for late fiscal year 2023, she said. That would be in the July to September timeframe of that year.
Once a prototype has completed lab testing and is ready to move on, Gilkeson said the next step would be to field test it at the ITF’s innovation checkpoint at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. That environment allows for TSA introduce live passengers to the prototype, he said.
The self-screening project is also currently developing a concept of operations, the spokeswoman said. The ITF is working with DHS S&T and the TSA Requirements, Human Performance, and Engineering Division on a “strategic path for self-screening,” she said.
The self-screening concept is akin to grocery store customers using the self-checkout areas to pay for their goods, allowing people to go at their own pace. Just as grocery self-checkouts have evolved to become intuitive no matter the store or the vendor, passenger self-screening pods will also go through an “evolutionary development,” Gilkeson said. The hope is for such a system to reduce contact with other people, reduce the screening time, and be effective, he said.
“The goal is to get quickly get prototypes into a live environment to “start gleaning those lessons learned and incorporating them into the system operation because that human performance piece is the critical juncture at this point.”
The human factors include developing a system that is not only intuitive for the user but also involves when does a Transportation Security Officer need to check on a traveler to help them out or for some other reason.
Part of helping make any self-screening pods or areas intuitive would be related signage, which in general is a problem at airports worldwide, Nina Brooks, vice president and permanent representative to ICAO at the International Coordinating Council of Aerospace Industries Associations, said on the same panel as Gilkeson. For passengers to be comfortable with self-screening, communications and process will be critical and it will be a learning experience, she said.
Brooks also expects behavior detection technologies will be part of self-screening. If a person is taking too long in a pod, the technology would cue a screening officer, she said, adding that artificial intelligence still needs further development for this to happen.
Early in 2020, DHS S&T awarded small contracts to two innovation companies, Lauretta AI and Deep North, for the development of video analytics that could help with self-screening, such as enforcing social distancing and providing cues so that people using a system follow the correct procedures.
Gilkeson suggested that a potential concept for a self-screening setup might include three or four pods occupying the space where a single screening lane currently sits. Getting the footprint of a pod correct is an important consideration, he said.