The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology (S&T) branch next week will begin its first demonstration of an integrated standoff explosives detection architecture under a multi-year program created earlier this year called the Standoff Technology Integration and Demonstration Program (STIDP).
The upcoming demonstration will run from Sept. 26 through Nov. 9 at the Toyota Center, a sports and entertainment venue in Kennewick, Wash. The tests will span six home hockey games of the Tri-City Americans who play in the Western Hockey League. The tests will use commercial off-the-shelf technologies to screen people as they enter the facility.
The test will include a millimeter wave-based radar system called CounterBomber provided by SET Corp. that can find and track suicide bombers but does not reveal the underlying body structure. Systems integration will be done by Thermal Matrix USA, which will also provide off-the-shelf infrared cameras and data recording and playback. General Electric [GE] will be supplying video analytics.
The millimeter wave and IR technologies will be used to detect concealed objects, such as suicide bomb vests. The video analytics software “will analyze surveillance camera images and look for anomalies such as abandoned bags, formation of groups, people loitering, and more,” DHS S&T says. “Other surveillance cameras will be used to document the flow of people into the facility and to facilitate the interdiction process if the sensors detect a concealed object. Two infrared cameras will be located on tripods near designated walkways, and the millimeter wave radar probe will be positioned long the intersection of walkways.”
The study will examine the flow of people approaching the Toyota Center to understand who the technologies perform when a lot of people who are crowded together are approaching a venue. S&T will provide feedback to the system developers so they can make improvement to eventually enable a comprehensive security architecture to be developed.
The goal of the STIDP program is to integrate various systems and technologies into a system of systems architecture to more accurately and quickly detect multiple threats at standoff ranges, which refers to outside of the blast zone.