Product Area: Commerce Inspection

Commerce Inspection Overview

Commerce inspection involves the detection of threats in checked baggage, carry-on baggage, cargo, and mail that moves on all commercial passenger aircraft. The Transportation Security Laboratory (TSL) has developed world-class capabilities in each of these domains. The Commerce team’s work on checked and carry-on baggage inspection focuses on detecting, deterring and preventing the transportation of prohibited items (for example: Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), guns, and knives) in passenger baggage by identifying existing and developing new technologies that meet the emerging security needs of the traveling public. The focus of TSL’s Commerce group in air cargo and mail inspection is to investigate, characterize, and develop inspection technologies and systems to enhance operational capability for inspecting cargo, including mail, intended to be carried on passenger aircraft; these inspection systems need to be compatible with systems already in place that screen checked and carry-on baggage.

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Checked and Carry-On Baggage

Optimal inspection systems must be effective in identifying a wide range of threats, while at the same time not alarming on innocuous objects. Inspection systems must also screen bags quickly, be reliable and available when needed, and perform in a cost-effective manner. Once these technical challenges have been met, inspections systems need to incorporate the latest detection capabilities to capture the constant changes in the type, size, and configuration of threats, which represent a major challenge to system effectiveness. TSLs Commerce Inspection team is intent on identifying and developing the technologies that meet current and unanticipated threat detection needs.

Research and Development (R&D) priorities of the Commerce Inspection group in the checked baggage domain include the development of state-of-the-art high-speed checked baggage systems that are capable of processing more than one thousand bags per hour.  Further, the group focuses on reduction of false and shield alarms on deployed Explosive Detection Systems (EDSs), and investigation of cutting edge technologies (for example, X-ray diffraction and neutron-based elemental composition analysis) to screen checked baggage.

R&D priorities for carry-on baggage include the development of checkpoint EDSs that can automatically detect ever-decreasing amounts of explosives (conventional, homemade, and liquid), weapons, and investigating dual-use capabilities. Systems with dual-use capabilities will allow the screening of both checked and carry-on baggage with the same machine to be deployed at small airports and other transportation venues.

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Cargo and Mail Inspection

The nature of air cargo operations makes effective screening a particularly complex task. Several factors must be considered, including commodities flown, volume transported, and configurations of shipments. Each cargo station is unique, characterized by several factors, among which are the geographic location (for example, national or international gateway, proximity to industry), type of aircraft service (wide body or narrow body), prevailing flight schedule for carriers, and type of operation (hub or spoke). And because U.S. mail may be carried on passenger airlines (in accordance with Public Law 107-71), mail shipments are an important part of efforts to secure air cargo.

The focus of TSLs Commerce Inspection group is to rigorously investigate inspection technologies and systems that will carry out efficient detection of explosive threats with minimal nuisance alarms in the cargo and mail. The Commerce team carries out four initiatives in this area: Characterization of cargo commodities and configurations, selection of candidate screeners, training of cargo screeners, and evaluation of inspection technologies.

The Commerce group’s priorities include overseeing the development and testing of state-of-the-art explosives detection systems for break-bulk, palletized, and containerized cargo. The Commerce Inspection team is also investigating technologies that can be used to screen particularly common cargo commodities, such as fresh produce, seafood, meats, and printed material. Other technologies include methods to defeat IEDs such as non-linear junction detection and IED disruptors.

TSL activities continue to ensure that the best possible combinations of technologies are in place to detect terrorist threats in cargo and mail. The overall goal of these activities related to cargo inspection is to develop a toolbox of threat detection equipment for situations of elevated threat. Commerce Inspection’s approach is to assess commercial off-the-shelf threat detection technologies to determine viable options for screening cargo, modify existing equipment, develop emerging technologies, and work with other agencies to engage in cooperative efforts or data exchange.

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Results

Checked and Carry-On Baggage. The TSL has forged cooperative agreements with five different industry partners for development of checked and carry-on baggage screening systems that use proven and emerging technologies. The Commerce Inspection team conducted certification readiness testing of CT80 from Reveal Imaging Technologies, Inc. and the Yxlon 3500 from General Electric/InVision Technologies. The Commerce Inspection group has also participated in evaluating the General Electric CTX9800 and the Analogic XLB, King Cobra, and Fusion systems.

Cargo/Mail Inspection. The Commerce Inspection team has carried out Test Readiness Evaluations (TREs) for four containerized cargo screening systems, including the L3/CyTerra Pressure Activated Sampling System for Cargo (PASS-C), the General Electric MegaVolt Computerized Tomography (CT) system, the GE-Quantum Magnetics collaboration on an integrated quadruple resonance and ion mobility spectroscopy system, and the R.A.Y. Buechler Ltd. CargoScreen system.

TSL has developed a large database of break-bulk cargo characterization data, and provides data on containerized cargo for the ongoing research efforts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Bates Laboratory on nuclear resonance radiography.

The Commerce Inspection group continues to evaluate ways to optimize existing baggage screening technologies for break-bulk cargo situations, including EDSs Advanced Technology Systems (ATSs), Explosive Trace Detection Systems (ETDs), and canine teams.

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