General Electric [GE] says its Global Research center has received a six-month, $2 million contract from the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) to develop a working prototype of a mobile Standoff Radiation Imaging System (SORIS) under the Standoff Radiation Detection System (SORDS) program. The contract was actually awarded in July, around the same time that Raytheon [RTN] received a follow-on award under SORDS (TR2, July 23). DNDO awarded nine-month phase one contracts last October. GE says its SORIS system is installed in a van and is designed to locate and identify radioactive sources from 100 meters away in 20 seconds. When the SORIS system receives a hit the van can be driven close to the source or call in a response team with a handheld radiation detector for further investigation. SORDS type systems are initially being developed to do large area sweeps, quickly and accurately, in areas such as chokepoints and parking lots. The prototype system to be developed in phase two will not be a full-scale model. Development of a full-scale system would happen in phase three with testing to occur in a fourth phase. The phase one proof-of-concept effort showed that the SORIS approach works in a lab, GE says. Now it’s about transitioning the lab effort into a mobile unit, the company adds. GE says it is adapting nuclear medicine technology from its Healthcare business for SORIS based on a coded aperture system. Science Applications International Corp. [SAI] and the Naval Research Lab have also received phase two awards under SORDS.
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