AST Digital Magazine October 2017 Digital-Oct | Page 44

Volume 17
October 2017 Edition
munity with the capability to screen for potential
threat items at the speed of the traveling public. “The Surface Transportation Explosive Threat
Detection Program is working in collaboration
with the surface transportation system officials
and our technology developers to address an
extremely challenging problem through innova-
tive technologies that are designed to work to-
gether and provide a layered approach to secu-
rity throughout the transportation systems,” says
Don Roberts, Program Manager in S&T’s HSAR-
PA Explosives Division.
(Surface transportation such as subway systems can be a
unique security challenge due to the large crowds of travel-
ers and the open, unstructured environment. Public safety
officials (including mass transit Operators, mass transit po-
lice, state and federal law enforcement teams) need a capa-
bility to detect potential threat items on persons and in bags
without negatively impacting the speed of travel. S&T is de-
veloping technology to meet this challenge with the Surface
Transportation Explosive Threat Detection Program, helping
provide a layered, integrated capability to detect and miti-
gate the explosive threat at the speed of the traveling public.
Courtesy of DHS Science and Technology Directorate and
YouTube) “Basically, we are taking a ‘Curb to Platform’ ap-
proach to security.”
The job cannot be accomplished with
only one sensor.
This “Curb to Platform” approach uses a network
of different sensors distributed at various points
throughout rail and subway systems.
Identifying potential threats on people and in
their bags without physically interacting with
them or impacting their movement through
the system is challenging because rail and
subway systems do not have fixed check-
points like those found in airports.
The STETD is designed to provide anomaly/explosives de-
tection in a high throughput environment.
This allows officials to get multiple perspectives
for better detection without alerting the subject.
Don Roberts, S&T Explosives Division’s (EXD) Program
Manager
One such STETD Program technology is the In-
telligent Video algorithm designed by Johns Hop-
kins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
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