Human Radiation Detectors Now In Service
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The problem with nuclear radiation is that by the time you can detect it, it’s usually too late. By the time seismographs, infrasound sensors, and radiation readers pick up on a blast, it’s already happened. Catching a nuclear weapon before it goes off is a lot trickier. Tricky, but not impossible.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently announced a program to develop wearable technologies, similar to smartwatches, that can detect nuclear bomb threats and other radioactive material. This means, basically, that people will become human radiation detectors.
The project has been in the works for a while; the DHS posted the first notice of the contract in June 2014. The original solicitation called for a system “capable of detecting and identifying radiation/nuclear threats, storing the identification results, and communicating those results in real-time (wired and/or wireless)” to ReachBack, a chemical and radiation threat analysis center. In September, the DHS awarded the $24 million contract to FLIR Detection. They are calling it the “Human Portable Tripwire” (HPT).
The DHS plans to distribute the HPT device to Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, and Transportation Security Administration personnel.
“This device has the capability to identify the source of radiation and allow personnel to take appropriate action,” said director of the DHS’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office Huban Gowadia. ”These devices are a critical tool for personnel who operate in the maritime environment, at land and sea ports of entry, and within the United States.”
According to a 2014 report by Fierce Homeland Security, Gowadia said at a House subcommittee hearing that each device would cost nearly $1 million. “The ceiling on the contract is $24 million and our minimum buy is 26,” she said at the time.
“Think of our Border Patrol officers who are sometimes very far removed from the nearest identification device,” said Gowadia in the hearing about how the device would be used, according to the report. “So it would be so much more efficient and convenient in their daily operations to have both capabilities built into one. And that’s what these systems were designed to do: detect, identify and store for archival and retrieval purposes that information on board that system.”
