SMART cart monitors trucks at shipping facility
To Protect Against "Dirty Bombs"
August / September 2005
Volume 3 Number 4
Since the last report on Sandia's homeland security projects in TechComm (February-March 2004), the lab has both expanded its R&D portfolio and seen some of its technologies advance into the marketplace.
The Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate's strategic objectives include developing and deploying state-of-the art, high-performance, low-operating-cost systems to prevent, detect and mitigate the consequences of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive attacks. Sandia National Laboratories is supporting these objectives with research in over a dozen security programs, including chemical/biological, radiological/nuclear, cyber, explosives and infrastructure. Two Sandia projects that are making a difference for homeland security overlap the chem/bio and rad/nuke programs.
Highly Discriminatory Radiation Detection
One technology that is fairly far along the commercialization curve protects against dirty bombs or other nuclear devices. Known as SMART—€”Sensor for Measurement and Analysis of Radiation Transients—€” this technology uses detectors and software to distinguish between normally occurring radioactive materials and those that are potential signatures of terrorist activities.
Currently operational in test-bed mode at one major East Coast port, the technology enhances other detection capabilities in use at the facility and provides inspectors with a much greater level of sensitivity and accuracy. Also, according to Sandia researcher Linda Groves, "It can be configured to fit your problem." SMART can perform in different locales and scenarios where highly discriminatory radiation detection is necessary and in fact was deployed last year during a high-profile political event.
SMART's proprietary software, developed by Sandia researcher Dean Mitchell, is key to the technology's success. The software helps operators easily and accurately identify the isotopes associated with radiological emissions. Most important, Mitchell and his group have worked to successfully integrate the software with the system's detection equipment and data management scheme, a complex design that enables each component of the system to "talk" to one another and work as a cohesive unit. A licensing agreement with Thermo Electron Corporation is making possible the manufacturing of radiation monitoring systems that use advanced radioisotope identification software—€”known as FitToDB and PASSBY —€”that Sandia developed.
A potential future outcome of this technology transfer effort is that Thermo Electron has the chance to bid on an upcoming procurement contract for a large number of spectroscopic portals for the Department of Customs and Border Protection.
Thermo Electron plans to combine Sandia algorithms with their existing algorithms to create a value-added platform, based on the proprietary Thermo Electron architecture. The ThermoX-Channel architecture, combined with Sandia intellectual property, will yield the ultimate system for detecting and unambiguously identifying radionuclides in motion. This revolutionary new approach to detecting and identifying isotopes will also, in the future, allow several detectors (rad/nuc, chem/bio, etc.) to be supported off a single-board architecture, yielding simplicity and total integration of multi-analyte detectors.
Thermo Electron's new product will include an integrated sensor network; fixed and mobile sensor monitoring; centralized monitoring capacity; integrated data formatting and reporting; and real-time threat detection capability. Applications include secondary inspection at borders and ports to include shipping containers, rail, pedestrian and trucks; integration into mobile van/truck based systems; and primary spectroscopic inspection at borders and ports.
Thermo Electron has invested significantly in market research, identified several locations, tested and demonstrated setup locations, and taken opportunities to team with three other major DOE labs to validate performance in the field (at port, border and airport locations, police departments, first responders), in order to ultimately generate customers, sales and use. Ultimately, the success story in the radioisotope detection and identification field will lead to future interaction, collaboration and technology transfer efforts of mutual interest to Sandia and Thermo Electron in the homeland security area, for example chemical/biological detection and monitoring.
Dual-Use System
One already fielded Sandia-U.S. Army technology (the Army owns the patent) designed to safely neutralize chemical warfare material is also effective against biological warfare agents. The Explosive Detection System (EDS), first delivered by Sandia to the Army in 1998, is a proven, transportable system that has safely neutralized chemical warfare material in an environmentally sound manner. The system operates by first explosively opening the munition's casing and deactivating explosives, then neutralizing harmful agents.
In 2000, the EDS was first called to action when it was selected to destroy six sarin-filled nerve agent bomblets found in a pile of scrap metal at Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver. In 2001, EDS safely destroyed an additional four sarin bomblets at the same site, and the following year it destroyed a 4.2-inch mortar containing phosgene that was found in a farmer's field in Gadsen, Ala.
Sandia researchers suspected the system could, in addition to snuffing out chemical warfare material, treat and destroy biohazards such as those containing anthrax. Such a system could give homeland security personnel a tool for safely neutralizing a dormant terrorist device, or it could be used by the military to remove a land mine or canister shell without having to set off an open-air explosion.
A just-released study at Sandia confirms EDS's effectiveness against biological agents, bio-contaminated containers, and improvised biological devices. Sandia sponsored the study itself, spending $60,000 in Laboratory Directed Research and Development funds over the past year to confirm the capability.
"There's high value in extending the EDS' successful track record into other areas—€”and bio came to mind right away," said Mary Clare Stoddard, a Sandia manager overseeing the research activity at the laboratory's Livermore, Calif., facility. With the BioEDS project, says Stoddard, Sandia's goal was to generate the data to confirm that this already-robust technology could be readily adapted to destroy a bioagent. Now, says Stoddard, "that means that should the need arise, a solution stands ready."
Margaret Lovell reports on Sandia activities for TechComm.
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