Integrated Defense & Security Solutions (IDSS), a relatively new company in the security detection space, has entered the initial stages of qualification testing at a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) laboratory for its computed tomography-based explosive detection system (EDS) that is designed to be used in checkpoint security applications, says the company’s chief.
The Detect 1000 EDS system will better identify potential threats versus harmless materials in carry-on bags than existing EDS systems used to screen checked bags at airports, Joseph Paresi, chairman and CEO of two-year old IDSS, tells HSR.
The company’s EDS system was installed in September at the Transportation Security Lab (TSL) in Atlantic City, N.J., that is operated by the Science and Technology branch of DHS. Paresi says the Detect 1000 arrived at the facility at 1 p.m. and was up and running by 5 p.m.
“It’s unprecedented that anyone has a new system and sets it up that quickly and has it working,” Paresi says. The system ran for two weeks and took over 1,000 images from bags loaded with explosives and other objects and “never broke down, which is also unprecedented because Bernie builds really good and reliable equipment right out of the box,” he says.
Bernie is Bernard Gordon, a board member of IDSS and the founder and former chairman and CEO of
Analogic [ALOG], which makes imaging products for the medical and security detection industries. Gordon. Analogic’s imaging technology is the core of L-3 Communications’ [LLL] eXaminer EDS systems and is used in Smiths Detection’s high-speed EDS system.
“So we’re not only going to blow away the testing with our performance, we’re already ready for manufacturing and we hope to be taking orders right after the qualification test, which we anticipate will be completed in the February 2015 timeframe,” Paresi says. IDSS has a potential customer involved with airport facilities that is interested in purchasing Detect 1000 units for checkpoint applications once the system achieves qualification at the TSL, he says.
Paresi, who knows the security detection market from his days as president of L-3, has assembled a team of executives from across the security industry, including officials who worked for L-3, Safran Group’s MorphoTrust, OSI Systems’ [OSIS] Rapiscan Systems division, InVision Technologies, which was acquired by General Electric’s [GE] former homeland protection business, which was sold to Safran.
According to IDSS briefing slides, deploying the Detect 1000 to aviation security checkpoints would allow travelers to leave their electronic devices such as laptops and phones, as well as liquids, in their carry-on bags. The system, which Paresi says has about 50 times higher resolution than L-3’s eXaminer line of EDS systems, can automatically detect thin sheet, homemade and liquid explosives inside carry-on bags and electronic devices, the briefing slides show.
The Detect 1000 also meets TSA’s requirements for footprint and weight at the checkpoint, Paresi says. The speed is also the same as existing Advanced Technology (AT) X-Ray systems used at airport checkpoints in the U.S., he says, adding that and the cost of the system compares to the AT systems and will be under $250,000.
Some of what makes the Detect 1000 so special, Paresi says, is the higher resolution because of how the detectors are aligned side the dual-energy system, providing accuracies for density and the effective atomic number of materials.
“We can figure out the mass or how much of the material is there,” he says. “So if we saw a pound of something with a density similar to C4, we would tell the computer to alarm on that, and the operator then would look only at that object to see if there was a detonator, wires and so forth. So it’s a much more automated and thorough way of examining these bags.”
“We have accuracies in the density and in the Z effective area of better than 1 percent,” Paresi says. “Really sharp. It means that we are now isolating objects in two dimensions. Instead of just density or atomic number, we are getting very accurate analysis and isolation of each object where we can tell the difference between explosive materials and other materials that might be in the same density range but harmless. That level of isolation has never been done before.”
With initial test results in hand, IDSS is adjusting its algorithms to maximize the detection levels of the Detect 1000 while minimizing the false alarm levels, Paresi says. He expects to “far exceed anybody’s performance in the past because of our level of resolution and discrimination techniques and we expect false alarm rates to be low compared to anything that’s been built.”
The system will remain at the TSL for several more months to continue qualification testing and perform some “special testing” for a customer, he says.
Paresi also says that IDSS has reached out to European regulators to conduct testing through the European Civil Aviation Conference in the first quarter of 2015.
IDSS has also designed and patented a shoe and body scanner based on high frequency millimeter waves with materials discrimination capability. However, the initial focus will be on the shoe scanner given the lack of deployed shoe scanning systems currently and the current widespread deployment of body scanners like L-3’s ProVision system, he says.
DHS S&T has approved the company’s proposal for a shoe scanning system pending the availability of funds, Paresi says.