Award Data

Gamma-ray spectrometers consisting of inorganic scintillators coupled to optical detectors such as photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) are an important element of the systems that are used to monitor and prevent the spread of special nuclear materials. Two very important requirements for the scintillation detectors used as gamma-ray spectrometers in homeland security monitoring include high sensitivity a ...

Radioactive materials are used in commercially important analytical instruments because of the ability of ionizing radiation to excite characteristic x-ray fluorescence lines. Radiation sources are often the most practical method for portable instruments, such as analyzers for lead paint in homes. There are many other applications, including the rapidly growing area of RoHS manufacturing. This eff ...

Proliferation of nuclear weapons is a serious threat in the world today. One way to determine the presence of nuclear weapons is to detect neutrons emitted by special nuclear material(SNM) such as highly enriched uranium and weapons grade plutonium. The purpose of this project is to develop improved solid state neutron detectors from CVD diamond for homeland security applications. Phase I work wil ...

The use and applications of radiological sources, for power, medical, and defense applications, continuously increases with time. Illicit nuclear materials represent a threat for the safety of the American citizens and the detection and interdiction of a nuclear weapon is a national problem that has not been yet solved. This represents an enormous challenge to current detection methods and monitor ...

Boston MicroSystems (BMS) proposes to develop a cell-phone sized instrument for detecting hazardous chemical and explosive threats. The instrument is based on BMS' PicoSensor® chemical and explosives detection platform, which has been developed in part under DHS support and is capable of sensing explosives and toxic chemicals at ppb and even ppt (trillion) levels. The Picoensor® consists of a ME ...

Given recent man-made and naturally occurring catastrophic events such as the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the effect of Hurricane Katrina, it is apparent that an emergency responder¿s ability to successfully manage and mitigate critical incidents is becoming of increasing importance. Training through live exercises is burdened by limits on availability as well as high costs in financial and per ...

As the trace detection portal systems being deployed into the airport check points, detecting explosives from airline passengers has become possible. In this proposal, we use a sample collection method that is similar to the one used in the portal systems; however, instead of using large scale air handling system to release, collection, and transport samples to the detector, we decided to bring th ...

Ion mobility spectrometer based explosives trace detectors (ETD) have been widely used in airport check points, ports of entry, government buildings, and other high security facilities. Most of these systems require manual collection of trace particles from vehicles via direct swabbing of surface areas of interest. Sample collection efficiency and inconsistency pose significant challenges to the e ...

Technical Abstract: GINER, Inc. proposes to design, develop and demonstrate a low-power consuming, screen-printed, thick-film electrochemical, carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxygen (O2) microsensor module that combines simultaneous real time detection of CO2 and O2 in one substrate and demonstrate its successful operation for the detection of humans hiding in cargo shipping containers. The microsensor m ...

Automatic extraction of actionable intelligence from collaborative sensors in a framework that supports seamless exchange of extracted information across sensor layers while leveraging the human in the loop is the focus our proposal. Depending upon the specific end-user, data extracted from the battlefield areas represent two major categories: information requiring and subject to further analyses, ...