MICRON Communications has signed a co-operative research-and-development agreement with the US Federal Aviation Administration to develop a prototype positive passenger-baggage matching system.
The objective is for the system to recognise automatically when baggage has been placed on an aircraft without the associated passenger, says Boise, Idaho-based Micron.
Baggage reconciliation is not a US internal requirement, although it is widely practised in Europe, where it is seen as a fundamental part of the security against terrorist bombing of aircraft. Most known incidents of in-flight bombing of airliners, have involved unreconciled baggage - cases when checked-in passengers have not travelled, but their luggage has.
The company plans to use its MicroStamp remote-intelligent-communications technology to design a security system, which will provide efficient tracking of passengers and baggage. Current MicroStamp products include a credit-card-sized device and a small integrated-circuit package which includes a processor, memory and spread-spectrum microwave-frequency radio. Micron says that MicroStamp units are more powerful and flexible than radio-frequency identification tags, which lack the processor capability.
Elsewhere in the fight against terrorism - which has taken on a new urgency since the crash of the Trans World Airlines Boeing 747 in July (although a bomb has still not been confirmed as the cause of the disaster) - InVision Technologies has shipped two CTX 5000 explosive-detection systems (EDS) ordered by Northwest Airlines for use at Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport in the Philippines. The systems will be used to scan US-bound baggage, starting in September.
The systems are part of a programme sponsored by the FAA to demonstrate certificated EDS equipment in co-operation with US airlines. CTX 5000 demonstrations are already under way with Delta Airlines at Atlanta, Georgia, and with United Airlines at San Francisco, California - examples of major domestic and international airports.
Foster City, California-based InVision says that CTX 5000 systems are also in use at airports in Belgium, Israel, Japan and the UK. The company has appointed Saudi Technology and Communication (STCC) as a distributor. Riyadh-based STCC has purchased a CTX 5000 for demonstration purposes, for delivery in late 1996.
InVision says that its CTX 5000 is the only FAA-certificated EDS. The system combines computed tomography with X-ray imaging, to produce cross-sectional images of a bag. Tomographic images are obtained by taking multiple X-ray slices of the bag. The system uses the relative densities of individual objects within each slice to locate and highlight suspicious substances automatically.
Source: Flight International
