Publications Details
The development of a walk-through portal detector for the identification of contraband explosives
Recent worldwide events have shown that explosives are the weapon of choice of terrorists in a variety of situations. For this reason, the need exists to develop a walk-through explosives detector that can be used at airports, government buildings, and other sites requiring both high security and the rapid screening of large numbers of people. In this paper, we discuss on-going efforts at Sandia to develop a walk-through explosives detection portal for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). We present a brief overview of detectors and detection methods currently utilized in this field, and discuss the special challenges associated with the development of portal detectors. Preliminary results obtained with the portal system at Sandia indicate that the overall portal concept is viable for the detection of contraband high explosives.