JMAR Technologies [JMAR], which has developed a biological water monitoring system to meet security and safety concerns, plans to enter the market for radiation and nuclear detection products in the near-term and eventually hopes to fill select needs across the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives (CBRNE) detection space.
To kick start its CBRNE plans, JMAR has hired James Winso, a former senior vice president at Science Applications International Corp. [SAI] who oversaw numerous radiation instrumentation and radiographic imaging programs, ranging from pager style and handheld instruments to the widely deployed VACIS system. Prior to his 11 year stint with SAIC, Winso was director of engineering for a subsidiary of General Atomics responsible for designing nuclear power plant safety systems and Navy radiation monitoring and safety systems. Winso was also with Westinghouse where he worked with nuclear systems.
“I think the motivation for JMAR is to complete the portfolio of CBRNE across the board,” Winso tells TR2.
Winso, who joined JMAR in July, will lead the company’s new Spectral Labs subsidiary and also serve as the company’s vice president of business development for CBRNE products. As part of his team, Winso brought with him an engineer from SAIC who is serving as director of engineering for special products. The engineer also has a background in radiation detection and imaging systems and also was involved in SAIC’s work under the Department of Homeland Security’s Bioagent Autonomous Detector Program, which is aimed at developing next-generation air monitoring and identification systems to be deployed in major urban areas of the U.S.
“Right now we’re looking at technologies where we can use mathematical computation techniques to be able to improve the cost performance ratio of [systems] either for radiation detection or explosives detection,” Winso says. “Using modalities such as radiation detectors or even using laser stimulation for standoff application.”
Winso says the company is working on “a couple of products” that aren’t ready to be released yet. He described the work as being “looking for faint radiation sources and looking for traces of explosives that might be at standoff.”
For several years at least JMAR has been developing a laser-based technology called double pulse laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), which uses laser energy to vaporize a small volume of sample material. The vaporized material can then be analyzed using optical techniques, which means the analysis can be done remotely. JMAR has had Phase I and Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts with the Army for the development of LIBS, demonstrating a double pulse laser that can be used in a prototype for stand-off–in this case 30 feet or more–detections of explosives and drugs, the company says on its Web site.
In the radiation detection area, Winso says that JMAR is looking at developing systems of a scale that fall between the large systems deployed today and the handheld devices. Within that gap “if you had something that was modular, that you could easily scale, including various different things from small vehicles to robotics that are even backpacked or carried if necessary, those are along the line of products we are looking at,” he says.
One mode of detection the company isn’t interested in is the active imaging systems that shoot neutrons or gamma rays because they require a lot of infrastructure, Winso says.
Affordability, or “superior cost effectiveness,” will be key attributes to JMAR’s products, Winso says. He says the company is mindful of the fact that the budgets first responders deal with aren’t large.
Despite the fact that JMAR will be attempting to break into the radiological and nuclear detection market seven years after 9/11, Winso says the need remains “for equipment that will provide detection and protection and identification and location of threat to our law enforcement officials, military officials, to people who are trying to provide security to the American public.”
The potential customer base JMAR is eyeing includes the Defense Department, in particular the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, both through SBIR work and possible niche applications, collaborating with larger prime contractors, and first responders, Winso says.
In the area of biological water monitoring, JMAR last month said it has sold its third BioSentry system to a major municipal water department in the U.S. The Tucson Water Department in Arizona acquired the BioSentry to complete field evaluations. Depending on the testing results, BioSentry may become part of the city’s water monitoring program.
JMAR began developing BioSentry several years ago. The system can detect the presence of harmful microorganisms in water and classify them within minutes. The company had hoped to be well on its way with sales, marketing and production of BioSentry by now but had to resolve some technical issues before re-releasing the product. In the spring JMAR announced that the Environmental Protection Agency had completed a testing program on the performance of BioSentry, which found that the system was able to detect bacterial pathogens up to 25 times better than any other product tested.
JMAR has staffed a sales and marketing team to pursue various markets for BioSentry.