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Conference to compare dogs, detection machines

NEW YORK -- You simply can't send a machine to do a dog's work. Despite millions spent on sophisticated explosives detection machines, experts agree that the snout of a hunting dog is the best equipment to find bombs in large buildings or airplanes.

Aviation officials gathering at a security technology conference this week in Atlantic City will compare the merits of high-tech ion-mobility spectrometers -- already in use as bomb- and drug detectors -- with the advantages of sniffer hounds.

Even parties with vested interests in the technology say the dogs are better under many circumstances.

"A dog's nose is probably the most sensitive piece of equipment going. They're enormously accurate," said Brook Miller, vice president of Barringer Technologies, one of the companies that will exhibit spectrometry scanners at the FAA-sponsored Aviation Security Technology Symposium.

The conference will focus on a variety of security technology, from X-ray imagers to cameras that broadcast real-time surveillance video from inside airliners to the ground.

Much of the agenda delves into the relative merits of spectrometry scanners, which detect even microscopic residue of explosives or drugs left on baggage or passengers' clothing, documents or skin. The machines -- along with X-ray and magnetic-imaging equipment -- are likely to play an important role for airports that need to comply with new aviation security legislation.

During the detection process, particles are swabbed from suspicious areas or sucked directly into the machines. The particles are vaporized and the resulting ions are examined to see whether they resemble chemicals used in bombs or narcotics.

Paul Eisenbraun, vice president of Ion Track Instruments, said his company is under contract with the FAA to produce its Itemizer scanners, already used in 76 airports. Now the agency is pushing for more of the detectors, Eisenbraun said.

Ion Track's handheld scanner, called the VaporTracer2, is in the process of gaining FAA certification, Eisenbraun said. The company also carries a walkthrough version called EntryScan.

Devices like these and Barringer's Ionscan can identify particles as small as one-billionth or one-trillionth of a gram, putting them in the same league as a good bomb dog.

Companies at the forefront of trace- detection technology find themselves in competition with Labrador retrievers, German shepherds and Belgian Malinois.

Even though new aviation legislation requires bomb-detecting machines to be installed at all large U.S. airports by the end of 2002, the FAA has no plans to retire its dogs.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2001