Sense Holdings moving forward on explosive detection project

Published 26 January 2006

Much money is invested in developing ever more sensitive and accurate explosive detection technology, and Sense has been working at the Oak Ridge laboratory to develop such a technology

Explosive detection is drawing more attention, with DHS actively involved in encouraging companies to explore new technologies to make explosive identification quicker, more sensitive, more reliable, and cheaper. Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Sense Holdings (OTCBB: SEHO; FWB:OUP) is doing its share. This versatile company (it also develops biometric technologies) has a research and development project with the U.S. government’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). It has just announced progress in the joint effort to develop a new line of hand-held multipurpose explosive and chemical detection devices. Specifically, the advances include the development of a new generation of enhanced explosive detection chips with increased detection sensitivity and lower costs. Sense is developing proprietary Micro Electromechanical Sensor (MEMS) technology to create a line of multi-use hand-held detection devices for security and law enforcement personnel. The new-generation MEMS chips are not only more sensitive, but also smaller, measuring 2mm x 3mm yet containing six sensors.

The challenge in explosion detection is how to create a device with extremely high sensitivity and real-time operation without at the same time increasing susceptibility to false alarms. The technology the company is working on will be based on chips which would each fulfill different detection needs. Bruce Warmack, principal investigator on the joint development project, says that “Our goal is to produce a range of different chip sets for different applications, with each chip set having perhaps a dozen or more sensors, each responsible for sniffing out, or sensing, different types of chemical, biological and narcotic agents.” Dore Perler, CEO of Sense Holdings, notes another important goal of the development project: “Many advanced explosive detection technologies are quite expensive, but a key part of Sense’s business strategy is to produce a next-generation detection device that will be extremely affordable, in order to put this safety and security technology within reach of all the agencies and organizations that need such products, in the United States and around the world.”

Several U.S. agencies have given about $10 million to ORNL during the past decade for the further development of this MEMS-based sensor technology.

-read more in this news release; read more about the company’s explosive detection technology at this Web page