GE opens passenger, baggage security lab at San Francisco airport

We have reported in the past two weeks of a shift in emphasis by the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) to a far-greater emphasis on baggage explosive detection at airports. Most reporters chose to highlight the other aspect of this change in emphasis — the relaxation of rules governing carrying scissors and small knives on board). GE Security (NYSE: GE), with support from San Francisco International Airport (SFO), has just unveiled a laboratory it hopes will help identify, develop, and make available technology solutions which will make air travel safer, security less costly, and negotiating passenger checkpoints more convenient. We share GE’s hopes.

The Checkpoint of the Future laboratory, adjacent to SFO’s international terminal concourse A, passenger security area, offers a complete, real-world lane for evaluating existing and emerging security products and technologies. The lab’s aim is to identify technology solutions that may dramatically improve checkpoint security while driving down the total cost of ownership for government and airport operators around the world. In its initial configuration, the checkpoint lab will examine the benefits of using three emerging technologies not in current use for passenger screening operations to deliver on the vision for the passenger checkpoint of the future. They include millimeter wave and quadrupole resonance for scanning passengers and their shoes for the presence of threat objects, and computed tomography (CT), currently used for screening of passengers’ checked bags, will also be used for screening their carry-on items.

-read more at GE Security Web page

GE Yxlon 3500 explosives detection system

GE EntryScan (aka Puffer Machine)