The Department of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Science and Technology (S&T) branch have created a high-level joint strategy to guide research and development (R&D) to help meet aviation security solutions.
In addition to better defining the R&D goals and initiatives for the two agencies to jointly cooperate on, the strategy also provides industry with a better understanding of where investments in aviation security technology are being, and will be, made.
The Aviation Security Technology Research and Development Strategy is based on TSA’s requirements, Paul Benda, director of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency within S&T, tells a House Homeland Security Committee panel. The two agencies are already looking to expand the strategy beyond aviation security for all of the R&D S&T is doing for TSA, he says.
The strategy document was completed in March and S&T released a public version in August. It has five goals:
· The first is improving understanding of improvised explosive threats and address the explosive threat vulnerabilities;
· Mitigate privacy issues by integrating and automating screening processes;
· Develop technologies that enable risk-based, intelligence driven screening processes;
· Develop flexible security solutions to better respond to emerging threats; and
· Apply S&T breakthroughs to advance security solutions.
R&D Objectives
Each goal is supported by two or three objectives to help DHS achieve “tangible benefits in the short run,” the strategy says.
Under the goal of improving the threat understanding around explosives, the first objective seeks research with domestic and international partners “to characterize improvised explosive properties and detection and detection signatures in advanced explosives detection equipment.” The second objective seeks to accelerate the development and affordability of palletized cargo screening systems for air cargo screening, boost the performance of canine screening, and learn more from other “biological systems for detection applications.”
In support of reducing passenger privacy concerns, DHS would like to improve the ability of handheld screening devices to detect non-metallic threats to resolve Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) anomalies and further minimize pat downs (See Business Opportunities section this issue). Improvements are also sought in Automated Threat Recognition (ATR) algorithms for use in AIT and other screening operations.
Also under the privacy goal but with an eye to improving passenger convenience and throughput, another initiative seeks the accelerated development and testing of shoe scanner systems so that some travelers don’t have to divest their shoes.
To support risk-based and intelligence driven screening processes, DHS wants to improve situational awareness by investing in data gathering and analysis, in particular through the “development of software with ‘subject matter expert’-derived rules to analyze data using empirically tested and verified automated anomaly and network detection algorithms,” the strategy says.
DHS also wants to use technology to integrate its many layers of security to improve situational awareness.
“Integrating the knowledge gained about a potentially threatening passenger or bag across the layers of security and zones of the airport would allow for intelligence-driven targeted screening,” the strategy says. “This initiative seeks to enable the integration of existing video tracking capabilities used in other industries with checkpoint and lobby screening currently conducted at airports.”
For the development of more flexible security solutions to meet current and emerging threats, the strategy wants the accelerated development of open architectures for imaging equipment to enable third party vendors to participate in ATR algorithm development. Specifically, the strategy seeks industry standard imaging and data formats for AIT and X-Ray systems.
A separate, but similar, initiative supporting the same goal also seeks open architectures for security system components, which would accelerate development of different components that still conform to standard interfaces.
“Specifically, the separation of hardware and software in imaging systems would allow independent development of these two critical technology areas, thereby accelerating the pace of innovation in each of these two areas,” the strategy says. “Similarly, the separation of detectors and sampling systems for explosives trace detectors would allow for system modularization and accelerated development of these components.”
Under the final goal of advancing aviation security technology, the strategy focuses on three initiatives: the first related to behavior detection and seeks stand-off automated detection of hostile intent. S&T has been conducting a program along these lines for several years called the Future Attribute Screening Technology project that seeks to identify people with malintent; a second initiative seeks to “expand the number of measured discriminating features in image-based security screening systems in order to provide improved explosives threat detection capabilities and increase operational flexibility in imaging systems;” finally, the strategy seeks to enhance explosives trace detection systems in several ways, including the development of stand-off and high-resolution systems, and automated trace sampling methods.
DHS S&T’s Benda says the new strategy is just the first step in better coordination between his agency and TSA and in providing industry with where the two agencies are going. The second step is providing more definition of where investments need to be made, he says.
S&T and TSA have agreed to develop a pilot process to examine different mission areas where investments will be focused, Benda says. The effort will “try and identify where we think technology can achieve some efficiencies that can be gained and then identify what investment S&T is going to make [and] what procurement investment TSA plans to make in the future, because there’s no point in investing R&D dollars if there’s not a future investment strategy or market for that technology,” he says. Afterward, another joint document will be published to show industry where R&D and procurement money will be invested, he adds.