ACID - Accelerated Contraband Identification by Diffraction

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ACID will combine two disruptive technologies to produce the fastest and most reliable automatic contraband identification security scanner. The innovative ACID scanner uses a unique, patented X-ray diffraction method from Nottingham Trent Universities (NTU) and Cranfield (CU) Universities and a world leading energy resolving X-ray detector from STFC to be able to identify threat and contraband materials such as drugs and explosives-. The ACID technology is needed as current state of the art security scanners cannot discriminate robustly threat and contraband materials from everyday items. This leads to high false alarm rates, manual secondary scans/searches, which cause bottlenecks at security checkpoints and still do not identify many contraband items [1]. The current methods of measuring the transmitted X-rays through a cluttered inspection volume to estimate the density and average atomic numbers of the materials that might be present do not provide sufficient sensitivity or specificity. ACID will measure diffracted X-ray flux to enable the calculation of the spacing between atomic planes or d spacings to provide a unique "chemical fingerprint" to identify material phase.X-ray diffraction is a well-established technique that has been used for many years to characterise materials in the laboratory environment. Until now, X-ray diffraction has been a relatively slow technique, which has prohibited its use in areas such as security screening. ACID overcomes these limitations by using patented focal construct geometry (FCG) that provides an "amplified" diffraction signal and the HEXITEC energy resolving imaging detector to provide a high rate measurement over the entire diffraction signal range of interest whilst using only conventional X-ray sources. This unique combination of technique and technology is essential to provide an accurate, fast, cost-effective and automatic security scanner that can identify contraband and threat materials.The ACID project will deliver a scanner to automatically identify contraband in postal and personal items such as phones and laptops. This will provide a platform technology that can address immediately the increasing need to screen such items at secure facilities, large events and soft urban targets such as railway stations. The project partners include Halo X-ray Technologies Ltd (a spin out of NTU and CU) who will take this ACID scanner to market and develop a range of automatic contraband identification scanner products. There is a clear market drive to have technologies such the ACID scanner deployed as we move into the next decade. The CLASP funding is essential to combine two areas of UK expertise and enable the ACID technology to be developed to a sufficiently mature level to address this time limited market. The automated ACID scanner will not only make security screening easier, faster and more pleasant for the public it will importantly meet the ever increasing need to make our borders, cities and buildings safer by identifying threat and contraband materials.[1]http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/02/us-airport-security-raised-after-fake-weapons-missed-by-screenings