TSA Puts Smiths’ IONSCAN 500DT on New ETD Qualified List
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has certified Smiths Detection’s IONSCAN 500DT explosive trace detector (ETD) meets new standards created in December 2006, making it the first ETD unit to be put on the agency’s new Qualified Products List. Smiths introduced the IONSCAN 500DT in 2005 (TR2, Jan. 12, 2005). The benchtop unit can simultaneously detect explosives and narcotics from a single sample. The 500DT was previously certified by TSA under older ETD standards (TR2, June 14, 2006). TSA says in a recent FedBizOpps announcement that around Sept. 15 it plans to award Smiths a contract for 100 of the 500DTs, including service support.
Apptis Acquires Base One Technologies
Apptis, Inc., a small information technology (IT) solutions firm, has acquired Base One Technologies LTD, a woman owned small disadvantaged business that also provides IT services. The deal gives Apptis a position on the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) EAGLE program, for which Base One services as a prime contractor under Functional Category 5 for Management Support Services. Apptis is a DHS contractor as a small business on the FirstSource program (TR2, Feb. 21, 2007). Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Base One, which is based in New York, will operate as a subsidiary of Apptis, which is based in Northern Virginia.
Smiths to Leverage Torion’s Technology
Smiths Detection has partnered with Utah-based Torion Technologies, which is developing miniaturized Gas Chromatography Toroidal Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry (GC- TMS) technology, for the joint development of a next-generation, hand-portable GC-TMS system for the security, defense and emergency responder markets. Smiths says that the use of Torion’s proprietary toroidal technology will allow the well established GC Mass Spectrometry technology to be used in a lighter and faster way than is currently the case. Smiths says development of a GC-TMS system will benefit its existing products such as HazMatID, GasID, ResponderR RCI, the SABRE 4000, SABRE-FR and others. “We believe the Torion/Smiths Detection partnership makes sense on multiple levels as it will result in a market-leading instrument that will be critical in combating chemical threats around the world,” says Douglas Later, president of Torion. Separately Smiths Detection has appointed Dr. Anthony Policastro as chief scientist of its PROTECT Solutions team. Policastro, formerly of Argonne National Laboratories, has worked on critical infrastructure security and protection for transportation as director of the Program for Response Options and Technology Enhancements for Chemical/Biological Terrorism (PROTECT) since 1997 at the lab. Smiths PROTECT Solutions provides command, control and communications software for integrating CBRNE sensors, digital video cameras for verification of detector activations, real-time modeling of hazard zones, firemen jacks for outside responders to view threats before they enter a facility, and concept of operations plans and training programs.
Spectrum San Diego, QRSciences to Merge
Diversified Opportunities [DVOP], which is a trading shell largely owned by Australia’s QRSciences Holdings Ltd., is acquiring QRScience’s subsidiary QRSciences Corp. and a separate company, Spectrum San Diego, Inc., to create a technology company with scanning and imaging products serving the security market. The ownership arrangements are a bit unusual. QRSciences Corp., which is based in San Diego, owns about one-third of Spectrum San Diego. The cash price of the deal, taking consideration of QRScience’s partial ownership of Spectrum San Diego, is $9.3 million. The combination brings together several products and technologies, including Spectrum San Diego’s CastScope, which is being acquired by the Transportation Security Administration to allow aviation checkpoint screeners search for concealed threats when screening passengers with casts, braces, heavy bandages and prosthetics. Spectrum is also developing another product called CarScan, which is being funded through the Technical Support Working Group, to allow vehicles approaching a checkpoint or gate to drive slowly and safely through the inspection system. CarScan is in Phase II, which involves the construction and field testing of a prototype. QRSciences Corp. has developed SentryScope, a high-resolution 180-degree camera that is deployed at international locations for security monitoring of large crowds and large areas. The companies also have other technology and intellectual property, including Spectrum’s royalty generating patents currently licensed to General Electric [GE] for use in a shoe scanning system. Spectrum’s President Steven Smith years ago helped develop backscatter X-Ray technology used in OSI Systems‘[OSIS] Secure 1000 whole body imaging system.