The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) has awarded Decision Sciences International Corp. (DSIC) a 17-month, $2.7 million research and development contract for an Advanced Technology Demonstration (ATD) of the company’s cargo scanning system that has already been installed at an international shipping port.
DNDO will review the design of the Multi-Mode Passive Detection System (MMPDS) as well as data, including data from ongoing testing of the system at the Freeport Container Port in the Bahamas, Stan Sloane, president and CEO of DSIC, tells HSR. Eventually, DNDO will conduct testing of the system at Freeport, likely beginning in 2013, he says.
DSIC is one of at least several companies that has either developed, or is developing, technology that can detect the presence of harmful radiological materials inside of shipping containers with fewer false alarms than existing technology. DSIC’s muon tomography-based MMPDS can also detect the presence of special nuclear materials that are being intentionally shielded from within a container.
At its own cost and with the cooperation of host port terminal operator Hutchison Port Holdings, DSIC installed an MMPDS system at an exchange lane as it passes a Custom’s gate on the way into the Bahamas and away from the terminal. The system is being used as an operational test bed by DSIC to collect various data including environmental and system performance, Sloane says.
For the testing, DSIC is scanning containers it has configured as well as many shipments that are entering the Bahamas as part of that country’s imports, Sloane says. Typically, only several dozen containers are being imported into the country on a daily basis through the Freeport terminal, he says, adding that a good portion of those are being screened by the MMPDS.
It takes between 30-35 seconds for a container to be screened by an MMPDS and cleared as long as there is no potential threat discovered. The system is incorporated with routine port operations, Sloane says.
There is no time limit for the test bed deployment at Freeport, Sloane says.
While the MMPDS technology is currently being used for radiological and nuclear detection screening, DSIC is under contract with the Defense Department’s Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office to develop software so that the system can detect contraband and explosives (HSR, Aug. 15).
Sloane expects testing on the new software to be done later this year.
While the focus of the DNDO contract and the operational test bed at Freeport is on scanning containerized cargo, Sloane says that the MMPDS has a number of potential uses beyond traditional cargo screening, including nuclear treaty verification and the prevention of smuggling of nuclear materials for non-proliferation purposes. There is also interest for nuclear plant security, he says.
The MMPDS technology also has stand-off detection capabilities, Sloane says.
Sloane says the MMPDS has a very sensitive radiation detection capability which gives it the stand-off capability, which could be useful in verifying intelligence about certain shipments.
“So there are a lot of extensions to this technology that are of great interest to the defense and intel community, not just for shipping and container security,” Sloane says.
DSIC is currently building a demonstrator system for the stand-off detection capability that it expects to have ready later this year or early next, Sloane says.