| A critical component of
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) nuclear countermeasures is a radiation
detection portal capable of examining cargo containers, commercial trucks,
and privately owned vehicles. To that end, NSF researchers with the
Bernard M. Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems at
Northeastern University, in conjunction with industrial partners Bubble
Technologies Industries (BTI) and Raytheon, have developed a tool that
can detect nuclear material in sealed cargo containers, trucks, and cars.
The detection tool, called
ASHERD—the Arrayed Spectrometric High-Efficiency Radiation Detector—is
the result of a $4.7 million development contract and nine-month proof-of-concept
program for DHS. ASHERD uses multiple radiation detectors to cover
a broad range of gamma and neutron energies. The multiple detectors
provide high sensitivity and reliability and low false alarm rates. ASHERD
was tested at a Nevada test site and deemed successful by DHS. The
figure shows the ASHERD system being tested.
Center researchers led the
development of ASHERD, and to bring the tool to production by the U.S.
government, the Center industrial liaison officer negotiated a contract
between Raytheon and BTI so that these two Center Industrial Partners could
bid for the production contract. Raytheon (the lead) and BTI were
awarded a substantial portion of the contract, worth $1.2 billion.
The first round of detection units produced by Raytheon and BTI were installed
in the New York Container Terminal in Staten Island in February 2007. |
