A Canadian company says it has developed a system that can automatically detect multiple kinds of security threats passing through airport X-ray machines, from weapons and their components to liquid explosives.
Using optical-recognition technology explored for Cold War weapons systems, Optosecurity Inc. has built a device that attaches to X-ray machines and identifies guns, knives and weapons components, to bolster the work of human screeners. Tests in airports have been planned for 2007.
Now the Quebec-based company says it has added a new capability to the device: the ability to sniff out liquid explosives. Using the same X-rays that already probe baggage, Optosecurity's system measures the physical properties of liquids to determine what they are.
Other companies have machines that can detect liquid explosives. But cost and logistical concerns - including fears that the scans would unacceptably slow screening - have kept the gear out of U.S. airports.
For example, Rapiscan Systems, part of OSI Systems Inc., offers a checkpoint X-ray machine that includes explosives detection. It uses a radio-wave technique called quadruple resonance to analyze the chemical composition of items in the machine. The Transportation Security Administration has tested the machine but has not deployed it.
Optosecurity contends its method is faster and less expensive than other systems because it uses only one energy source, standard X-rays, and is alone in being able to combine that with the optical recognition of weapons.
The Optosecurity system requires carry-on liquids to be sent through an X-ray machine in their own tray. That fits with recent TSA rules requiring travelers to limit their liquids to three-ounce containers that can fit in a quart-sized plastic bag. Liquids have been under increasing scrutiny since authorities announced in August that they had broken up a terrorist plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights with liquid explosives.
If a flier flouted the rule and stashed a bottle of liquid in a carry-on bag, the Optosecurity system would likely spot it and alert screeners - but it probably could not simultaneously analyze the substance properly, because of interference from the other things in the luggage, CEO Eric Bergeron said.
Optosecurity - whose chairman is John Manley, a former deputy prime minister and top homeland security official in Canada - would not specify how accurate its device is. Bergeron hopes to begin selling both the explosive-detection the optical-recognition functions in 2007.
Brian Ruttenbur, homeland security analyst for Morgan Keegan & Co., said that if the Optosecurity device were extremely accurate, it could be a breakthrough because "standard X-rays have not been proven to discover liquid explosives or anything like that."
On the other hand, "If it's only 50 or 75 percent accurate, while it's great, what about that 25 percent?" Ruttenbur said. "What are you going to do with false alarm after false alarm?"
And no matter how well it works, it could still face a challenge in attracting a purchase from the TSA, Ruttenbur said. He believes TSA's motivation is low because Congress has not specifically mandated new systems for liquid explosives and because there has not been a successful attack using that method.
"There's 20 different solutions out there for liquid explosives," Ruttenbur said. "My opinion is the TSA is going to trial everything in the entire world and deploy nothing."
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