The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says it plans to invest up to $395.5 million through fiscal year 2026 on people-screening technologies, mainly the body scanning types of machines currently being used at aviation security checkpoints, according to a new roadmap for the imaging technology published by the agency last Friday.
While the agency is currently testing next-generation body scanners—known as Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT)-2 systems—with multiple vendors and plans limited procurements of these in the near-term, it expects to begin replacing the current AIT systems with lower cost, more advanced AIT systems, TSA says in its Advanced Imaging Technology Roadmap.
Currently TSA has 734 AIT-1 units deployed at 158 airports in the United States. The systems are supplied by L-3 Communications [LLL] and are based on millimeter wave technology and include automated target recognition (ATR) algorithms that highlight where a potential threat is on a person’s body if the system alarms on an individual being screened.
TSA’s budget request for FY ’16 includes no funding to purchase AIT systems, although the agency has carryover funding to acquire 50 more systems, which would likely be the AIT-2 systems being tested, according to agency budget documents. The AIT-2 systems are expected to increase detection, increase passenger throughput, and use less real estate than the current AIT machines.
The Government Accountability Office reported last spring that the AIT-2 program is about nine months behind a previously revised schedule.
The AIT systems began to be widely deployed at the nation’s airports following the failed 2009 attempt by a terrorist to blow up a plane while in flight between Amsterdam and Detroit. The terrorist had a bomb in his underwear.
The roadmap includes timelines for future AIT enhancements over the next five years. These improvements include upgrades over the next one to two years to address known threats and inefficiencies, innovations during the next two to four years that apply existing capabilities and put them to new uses, and within the next five years, make transformational investments for future fielded capabilities. These transformational capabilities are expected to begin to be realized as part of the recapitalization process starting in FY ’17.
TSA says in the roadmap that research done by vendors, some of which has been directed by the agency, demonstrates the possibility that AIT systems can eventually be deployed to allow individuals to walk through the machines and eliminate or at least decrease the passenger divestiture time. The current system require a passenger to enter the machine and briefly stand still during the scanning process.
TSA is also interested in people-screening systems that are flexible and can adapt to changing requirements, thus allowing systems to be switched from one screening mode to another.
“This makes it possible to rapidly turn a TSA PreCheck lane into a standard lane, and vice versa, as required to optimize security operations,” the roadmap says. PreCheck lanes are used by trusted travelers who typically don’t have to divest items or remove their shoes and lightweight outerwear.