The Department of Homeland Security‘s science and technology directorate collaborated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory to evaluate an imaging technology designed to unobtrusively detect potential threat items in a crowd.MIT Lincoln Laboratory researchers helped facilitate a three-day developmental test and evaluation of a millimeter wave imager prototype at the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority’s emergency training center in Boston, DHS said Wednesday.
Researchers recorded the prototype’s capacity to recognize multiple simulated threat items on a rail platform at various distances as people moved within a radar’s field of view.
S&T intends to review data from the test in an effort to enhance the millimeter wave system being developed through the Surface Transportation Explosive Threat Detection program of the directorate’s explosives division.
The directorate also seeks to integrate the detector prototype with other technologies for layered tests and application in large crowd environments.
DHS noted the millimeter wave imager consists of antennas that are mounted on flat panels and built to process low-power radio signals.
William Moulder, the program lead at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, said his team is developing techniques and algorithms that will work to help security personnel obtain insight from microwave images.
