The Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) recent award to Rapiscan Systems for 150 whole body imaging systems to be deployed for primary screening at U.S. airports should open further markets for the technology both domestically and internationally, a company official tells TR2.
This is the first “widespread” deployment by a major regulator outside of the Defense Department “and we think this is the beginning of a market for personnel screeners that will go international and we are the first in it,” says Peter Kant, vice president for Global Government Affairs at Rapiscan. Rapiscan is a division of OSI Systems, Inc. [OSIS]. In addition to the contract award, TSA has placed Rapiscan’s Secure 1000 Single Pose system on its Qualified Product List (QPL) for Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT).
Rapiscan has already sold between 400 and 450 of its Single and Double Pose Secure 1000 screening systems to customers in the U.S. and internationally, excluding the new buy from TSA. Customers include the DoD, government facilities, court houses, private firms, international airports and others. Deliveries of the AIT systems to TSA will begin early in 2010 and are expected to be completed by the end of the year, the agency says.
The $25 million contract was made with funds from the FY ’09 Recovery Act. Kant says that Rapiscan will be adding jobs and expanding is facility in Mississippi to meet the demand.
Room for More
Rapiscan’s indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract allows for TSA to buy up to 893 systems, which means there is plenty of room for additional sales by the company as well as for competitors to get in on the action. Whether the agency buys that many systems is another question. TSA says the AIT systems are one component of layered security. The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract is worth up to $173 million.
A less surprising choice for the first production award would seem to have been L-3 Communications [LLL], which has sold about 40 of its ProVision millimeter wave-based whole body imagers to TSA beginning in the fall of 2007. Those systems have been in pilot testing for nearly two years, first in secondary screening applications and then beginning late last winter, in primary screening. All in all, L-3 has sold about 200 ProVision systems worldwide, including deployments by the U.S. military, court houses, and international customers.
For TSA to begin using the ProVision machine as a primary screening tool, which involves sending far more passengers through then when it is used in secondary mode, means the agency was satisfied enough that the system could meet relatively demanding throughput requirements. Passengers do have the option of opting out of using any whole body imagers in favor of going through a traditional metal detector and then being subject to a physical pat down search.
L-3 has made modifications to its ProVision system, which are undergoing a new round TSA-run pilot testing that began in August at select airports. Those pilot tests coincided with the beginning of pilot testing of Rapiscan’s Single Pose Secure 1000.
TSA tells TR2 it plans to leave the L-3 machines in airports, excluding three test sites where ProVision systems are on loan from the company.
“Millimeter wave remains a viable technology and TSA expects other vendors will participate in the continued development of imaging technology systems,” TSA says in a written response to queries. “By investing in multiple suppliers of imaging technology solutions, TSA is able to leverage competition to procure systems which provide the best value to the government. Each airport installation has its own unique constraints. By having multiple vendors, TSA is able to consider a number of options to support operations.”
Britain’s Smiths Detection, which last month introduced in the U.S. their entry into the whole body imaging market, is also “vigorously” pursuing inclusion on the QPL, Mark Laustra, vice president of Homeland Security at Smiths, tells TR2.
The company’s eqo system, which was introduced in Europe earlier this year, is also based on millimeter wave imaging (TR2, Feb. 4). The system is in testing with the Transportation Security Laboratory run by the Science and Technology Directorate of DHS.
Even before it began pilot testing L-3’s ProVision system, TSA early in 2007 began testing a backscatter-based personnel imager supplied by American Science and Engineering [ASEI]. At the time, TSA was also looking to pilot test Rapiscan’s Secure 1000 but ultimately decided not to. That is until more recently.
AS&E’s SmartCheck system was used in secondary screening for at least a year but it took about 40 seconds to clear an individual, which meant it wasn’t advanced enough for use in primary screening. TSA eventually stopped pilot testing the SmartCheck system and seemed to favor the millimeter wave technology. In August, when AS&E reported its first quarter results, company officials said they haven’t seen any indication from TSA that it was interested in backscatter technology again for whole body imaging but was undecided whether to discontinue SmartCheck.
Morgan Keegan defense and security analyst Brian Ruttenbur, in a recent note to clients following a visit to AS&E in Massachusetts, says the company has not begun the certification process for SmartCheck. However, be believes AS&E will ultimately attempt to get on the QPL, but “we do not see a high probability of achieving certification in the near-term.”
Rapiscan’s Secure 1000 system is based on X-Ray technology called backscatter. The image processing software displays organic and inorganic materials.
TSA had begun pilot testing the Secure 1000 system in early August after Rapiscan had made some changes to how the system was used. An earlier version of the Secure 1000 required a passenger to offer two poses to obtain front and back views in order to meet TSA requirements. Upgrades to the system by Rapiscan that were completed earlier this year allow for a single pose to capture all the necessary angles on a person in a few seconds, which speeds throughput.
Changes at TSA
Rapiscan’s Kant says that while the development of the Single Pose system helped his company get back in the whole body imaging game with TSA, ultimately it had more to do with changes at the agency in the past year.
When the AIT program was established a year ago, “they set forth measurable, demonstrable metrics for detection performance and privacy considerations, and meeting certain standards,” Kant says. Previously, program requirements and standards were a “moving target” making the process “subjective,” he adds. “Once they were able to measure here’s what it does in detection, here’s how fast passengers can move and this is what you can still detect with certain privacy applications, it became what I think would be a relatively easy selection for them.”
Kant says that TSA has developed a more objective standards and evaluation process to its acquisition activities, at least where Rapiscan competes or plans to, such as AT X-ray systems, AIT and Explosive Detection Systems. He also says that life-cycle costs related to the deployment and use of technologies is getting closer scrutiny as well.