The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) is acquiring 50 XPAK portable trace explosives detection systems from RedXDefense for advanced combat evaluation in Iraq and Afghanistan beginning next month.
The upcoming evaluation marks the largest scale deployment of XPAKs to date, although RedX has sold similar numbers of systems before to other customers, Regina Dugan, CEO of RedX, tells TR2. Deployed in the hands of a number of troops, the XPAK devices will be used in many applications including the screening of individuals and facilities potentially engaged in bomb making activities.
Using XPAK for wide area data collection is intended to identify patterns related to bomb making activities, thus allowing operational forces to better focus counter-improvised explosive device efforts on disruption of the bombers’ networks. A key feature to XPAK in this regard is Spotlight, an automated software tool that enables users of the equipment to streamline data logging, visualization, and analysis of the data that is being collected from the different devices in an area.
For the DTRA evaluation, the XPAK devices are equipped with an information module that gathers data that is later downloaded to be run through Spotlight. Spotlight includes geographic information system data to create a map of activity.
The idea is to take the fight “left of boom,” Dugan says, referring to the goal of preventing bombers from ever getting the chance to strike.
The overall DTRA award is about $1.5 million and has implications for more sales and a more widely distributed customer footprint. The evaluation could also demonstrate additional uses and applications for XPAK.
RedX developed XPAK, which was introduced in late 2007, with wide area screening as one of the applications in mind. The device, which is easily carried by an individual, includes a removable baton that is presented to an individual for hand sampling or rolled over the surface of a package, a vehicle or some other object–to collect a sample. The baton is reinserted into the XPAK and a knob is turned to spray fluorescent detection ink on the sample collector. Then the user looks through a visor at the baton, which is illuminated with an ultraviolet light. If the baton has dark spots on it, that indicates the presence of trace amounts of explosives.
The battery-powered XPAK is easy to use, to train with and maintain, has no hot sample clear down and requires no warm up or calibration. “It is a solid state, ruggedized system; not an analytical instrument,” Dugan says. These attributes make it ideal for use in field settings. Arguably, it has the most field up time of any system available today, she says.
XPAK is in use in over 20 countries in applications such as force protection, vehicle checkpoints, clearance of unattended packages or cargo, and as a complement to canines. The U.S. and foreign militaries are users of XPAK as are civilian and private sector customers.