The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate in the first half of May issued a new Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) to continue its Screening at Speed (SaS) program, including potentially examining more advanced requirements.
The new BAA “refreshes” a previous SaS BAA that expired after five years that focused on the development of prototypes for next-generation on-person screening, screening of carry-on baggage, alarm resolution technology, and checked baggage, S&T said.
“With the newly issued BAA, the Screening at Speed Program has the flexibility to continue to mature existing concepts as well as explore new potential requirements including, but not limited to artificial intelligence/machine learning, checkpoint automation, systems architecture, test and evaluation techniques, and curb-to-gate screening,” John Fortune, the SaS program manager, told HSR in an email reply to questions.
Under the new open five-year BAA, S&T expects to have $99 million to support the effort although the ultimate funding will depend on government discretion.
The Transportation Security Administration is the primary driver of requirements for the SaS program although where possible and dependent on funding, S&T will incorporate requirements of other DHS components such as the Secret Service and Federal Protective Service.
Currently, less than 150 per hour are screened on average at an aviation checkpoint, down from 350 per hour before 9/11 due to increased security measures. S&T says technology limitations require passengers to divest to “accessible property” such as personal electronics and carry-on baggage, which takes about 35 seconds and then another 40 seconds to collect.
And air passenger traffic is only expected to increase, putting demands on technology to be more efficient and secure. S&T says the end goal of the SaS program is to screen more than 300 people per hour per screening lane, detect threats at TSA’s highest standards, screening people without them having to remove outerwear, shoes, belts or headwear, screening liquids, gels, powders and personal electronics without removal from accessible property, integrate third party capabilities as they become available, make operations more intuitive for screening officers and passengers to improve the overall experience, and significantly reducing false alarms.
S&T lists a number of potential technical topic areas under the BAA including passenger analysis (video analytics, identity verification and credential authentication), passenger screening (millimeter wave, terahertz wave, enhanced metal detection), property screening (computed tomography, X-Ray diffraction, non-X-Ray sensors, explosives detection algorithms), system architecture and integration (open interfaces and algorithms, curb-to-gate sensing, data fusion algorithms), enabling capabilities (synthetic data generation, trace and bulk explosives detection), and test and evaluation (explainable artificial intelligence and machine learning, automated testbeds).
The SaS program was initiated to examine, develop and deploy technologies to strengthen aviation security while creating a more seamless passenger experience.