Lobster's eyes inspire hand-held detection device

The humble lobster is at the forefront of the next new weapon in the war on terror: A hand-held device, emulating the lobster’s vision, could help DHS agents see through wood, concrete, and steel. Technology based on the crustacean’s impressive ability to see through dark, cloudy, deep sea water is guiding scientists funded by the government in the early stages of developing a ray that one day could be used by border agents, airport screeners, and the Coast Guard. David Throckmorton, a project manager at DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate, says a California company has developed a hand-held prototype called the LEXID (Lobster Eye X-ray Imaging Device) that can see through walls. USA Today’s Mimi Hall quotes Throckmorton to say that the image, shown on a small screen, is not “high-definition TV quality,” but that it is good enough to pick up a cache of weapons or the parts for a bomb. It can also show a border agent if a person is crouched on the other side of a steel or concrete wall.

The patented device, which radiates objects with tiny amounts of X-ray energy, is “modeled exactly after the lobster living in the deepest, darkest part of the ocean,” says Rick Shie, senior vice president at the Torrance, California-based Physical Optics Corporation, which is developing the LEXID. A lobster’s eyes, which look like small antenna, are made up of thousands of tiny square channels that allow the eyes to focus by reflection, rather than by refraction — or the bending of light — as human eyes do. This unique optical geometric design, which allows lobsters to see in the dimmest light, is being adapted into a “lobster-eye lens” that focuses the X-ray images so that the device can actually see through a wall and project an image of what is on the other side. Shie says his company hopes to have the device perfected within a year so that Homeland Security agents can test it on the job. There is no estimate yet on how much each device would cost, but Shie says they hope to make it inexpensively enough so that it could have wide commercial appeal, including to pest control companies and contractors who need to look inside walls for rats or pipes.

At DHS, which has so far invested just under $1 million in the research, the LEXID could help members of the Coast Guard who inspect ships for weapons, drugs and stowaways. It could also help airport workers who check the crates loaded onto passenger planes and seaport inspectors concerned about the contents of the large metal cargo containers being taken off foreign ships, Throckmorton says. If a ship manifest says that a particular container is supposed to be filled with boxes, he says, the LEXID would allow an inspector to make sure it’s not full of 55-gallon drums. Shie says the device could help agents find all kinds of hidden contraband. “That’s how the guys that don’t like us fund their work,” he says. “And they’re pretty sneaky.”