by robertdreed » Sat Feb 25, 2006 7:06 pm
The guy may have lost the business card, but there are probably ways of tracking him down. <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=ct+scanner+%22cargo+container%22+company&hl=en&lr=&start=10&sa=N">www.google.com/search?q=c...rt=10&sa=N</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>A sample search result: <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://oemagazine.com/fromTheMagazine/feb03/busspot.html">oemagazine.com/fromTheMag...sspot.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>defense photonics<br>cargo inspection: an exploding market<br><br>Dan Inbar sits in his office and worries about the bomb that's waiting to blow up.<br><br>Inbar, chairman of Homeland Security Research Corp. (San Jose, CA), specializes in safety. He says that while the United States has moved quickly on airline security by placing explosives-detection systems in airports, the biggest hole in homeland defense has barely been addressed. "Current maritime screening technologies are made for smuggling contraband, but at best they detect explosives with an error rate around 30%," Inbar says. "The images are extremely complex to read. Until operators are taken out of the loop, these unacceptable error rates will continue."<br><br>If every piece of luggage represents a danger, then what about 20-ft containers that move from ship to shore to highway without an inspector even cracking the door? Although fewer cargo containers than airline passengers pass through the United States each year, only about 2% of those 5.7 million containers are inspected annually; of those inspected, only 30% contain material that matches the cargo manifest.<br><br>In 2001, seaports around the world purchased nondestructive cargo-container imaging systems valued between $60 million and $100 million. These systems use x-rays, gamma rays, or neutron streams to scan the cargo for structural or material analysis. According to security analyst Brian Ruttenbur at Morgan Keegan & Co. (Memphis, TN), several factors are converging today to boost sales from Inbar's estimated $200 million in 2002 to upwards of $600 million by 2004. "Those numbers could go through the roof if we have a catalyst event," Ruttenbur says, pointing to recent press reports of depleted uranium found in a taxicab in Turkey.<br><br>Less cataclysmic contributing factors include the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code amendment to the Safety of Life at Sea Convention, which is governed by the International Maritime Organization. The measure, expected to be adopted by most of the G8 and United Nations member states, includes new international ship and port-facility security guidelines for both signatory states and any port or ship doing business with that facility. Inbar estimates that security upgrades to ports, including surveillance, inspection systems, and initial personnel, will top $40 billion within the next 3.5 to 4 years, and cost $8 billion annually for maintenance personnel. In the United States, the recently adopted Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002 requires screening of all "high-risk" cargo. The Act enabled the government to budget $90 million to investigate cargo-imaging systems. The original bill, commonly referred to as the Hollings bill, established funding by setting a fee-based procedure, which was struck down by U.S. Congress, leaving the question of final funding for a nationwide cargo-inspection network unanswered.<br><br>Even after funding is identified and seaports start the expensive process of protecting against hidden weapons of mass destruction (WMD), countries will likely go through a subsequent buying frenzy when the next-generation systems hit the market. "Existing technologies are not designed to screen for [WMD], especially bio-chem agents," Inbar says. The front-running technology, fast neutron activation from Ancore (Santa Clara, CA), a company recently bought by OSI Systems Inc. (Hawthorne, CA), can automatically differentiate among materials based on their elemental composition. The system is not ready for mass production, however, and its effectiveness is limited to explosives and a handful of WMD threats, Inbar says. A final solution will likely have neutron- and x-ray-scanning abilities, as well as bio-agent and chemical-trace detection capabilities and a gamma-ray detector for plutonium.<br><br>Beyond comprehensive capabilities, the crucial feature is accuracy. A hand search of a cargo container, for example, can cost around $400. "A major cost factor of these systems are false alarms," Inbar says. —Winn Hardin <br><br>From the above article- Ancore, now Rapiscan Systems, a subsidiary of OSI: <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.rapiscansystems.com/cargoandvehicle.html">www.rapiscansystems.com/c...hicle.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 2/25/06 4:14 pm<br></i>
