Crowdsourcing for securityDHS moving forward on cell-all smartphone chemical detection technology

Safety in numbers. Last November we wrote about DHS’s plan to turn cell phones into chemical sensors, in the process making millions of Americans into roaming chemical sensor nodes (“Day of Americans Serving As Mobile Chemicals Sensors Nears,” 6 November 2009 HSNW). The Government Monitor offers an update on this intriguing concept.

As chips become smaller and more advanced, cell phones continue to adopt and enable new functions (just compare the smartphone to typical cell phone of five years ago). In the future, the new functions adopted by spartphones may help save lives.

In evidence: the Cell-All initiative spearheaded by the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T). The goal of Cell-All is to equip cell phones with a sensor capable of detecting deadly chemicals at minimal cost — to the manufacturer (a buck a sensor) and to the phone’s battery life. “Our goal is to create a lightweight, cost-effective, power-efficient solution,” says Stephen Dennis, Cell-All’s program manager.

Government Monitor writes that just as antivirus software bides its time in the background and springs to action when it spies suspicious activity, so Cell-All regularly sniffs the surrounding air for certain volatile chemical compounds. When a threat is sensed, one of two things occur:

• For personal safety threats such as a chlorine gas leak, a warning is sounded (the user can choose a vibration, noise, text message, or phone call)
• For catastrophes such as a sarin gas attack, details — including time, location, and the compound — are phoned home to an emergency operations center.

“While the first warning is beamed to individuals — a grandmother taking a siesta or a teenager hiking through the woods — the second warning works best with crowds,” Government Monitor writes.

This is the major point of Cell-All — crowdsourcing human safety.

Currently, an individual who happens to be near a chemical agent release may nit even be ware of it. Or, if he or she is aware of it, they may frantically call 911 — but their very agitation may reduce the quality of the information they are trying to convey. If they decide to stick around to gain more information, they may risk their lives.

Cell-All, on the other hand, will alert the authorities automatically. Detection, identification, and notification all take place in less than sixty seconds. Because the data are delivered digitally, Cell-All reduces the chance of human error. By activating alerts from many people at once, Cell-All avoids the problem of false positives. “The end result: emergency responders can get to the scene sooner and cover a larger area — essentially anywhere people are — casting a wider net than stationary sensors can,” Government Monitor notes.

Cell-All also addresses the issue of privacy. The system will operate only on an opt-in basis and will transmit data anonymously. “Privacy is as important as technology,” avers Dennis. “After all, for Cell-All to succeed, people must be comfortable enough to turn it on in the first place.”

The idea of a handheld weapons of mass destruction detector is not new. In 2007 S&T called upon the private sector to develop concepts of operations. Today, owing to increasingly successful prototype demonstrations, S&T is actively funding the next step in R&D — a proof of principle—to see if the concept is workable.

Government Monitor writes that to this end, three teams from Qualcomm, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Rhevision Technology are relying on their respective areas of expertise. Qualcomm engineers specialize in miniaturization and know-how to shepherd a product to market. Scientists from the Center for Nanotechnology at NASA’s Ames Research Center have experience with chemical sensing on low-powered platforms, such as the International Space Station. Technologists from Rhevision have developed an artificial nose — a piece of porous silicon that changes colors in the presence of certain molecules, which can be read spectrographically.

S&T is pursuing what is called cooperative research and development agreements with four cell phone manufacturers: Qualcomm, LG, Apple, and Samsung. These agreements, which bring together a private company and a government agency for a specific project, often accelerate the commercialization of technology developed for government purposes. As a result, Dennis hopes to have forty prototypes in about a year, the first of which will sniff out carbon monoxide and fire.

“To be sure, Cell-All’s commercialization may take several years. Yet the goal seems imminently achievable: Just as Bill Gates once envisioned a computer on every desk in every home, so Stephen Dennis envisions a chemical sensor in every cell phone in every pocket, purse, or belt holster,” Government Monitor concludes.