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Increasing efficiency of air cargo screening
Air Cargo skids and pallets take up a large amount of space on every commercial passenger flight. Federal law requires this cargo be screened at the same level as checked baggage. Single and dual energy X-ray systems can be scaled up to screen air cargo skids, but they produce two-dimensional views of air cargo that are often difficult for screeners to interpret due to the complexity of the content’s image. Increases in computing power, algorithmic complexity, and machine learning capabilities offer opportunities to enhance current X-ray screening capabilities.
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Drone jamming system to protect European airports, public spaces
Airports could be equipped with technology capable of detecting and bringing down drones that stray into their air space, according to Dan Hermansen, chief technology officer of Danish anti-drone firm MyDefence. The company has developed a drone alarm and protection system that is being installed at a number of prominent sites around Europe, including an airport. It has the potential to prevent the kind of costly disruption that hit London’s Gatwick and Heathrow airports recently.
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Israeli Drone Dome helps Gatwick airport to avoid shutdown
Drone Dome, from Israeli defense company Rafael, pinpoints a suspicious drone and jams the radio frequencies used by its operator to control it, rendering the UAV unable to move. The British military had purchased the system a few months ago, and used it during the drone sightings at London’s Gatwick Airport.
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Ways to stop a rogue drone
The mounting threat of drone users not following aviation regulation or committing crimes means police need effective ways to stop and capture rogue devices. One of the key challenges for any anti-drone counter-measure is that the typical small size of most drones makes them difficult to detect and target. One novel and widely reported idea being explored by the Dutch National Police is the training of bald eagles to down drones. A perfect solution has yet to be found, but interest and investment in drone countermeasures is increasing, giving authorities a growing number of options for tackling rogue drones.
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More drone sightings at London's Gatwick airport
New drone sightings Friday caused more chaos for holiday travelers at London’s Gatwick Airport, which reopened in the morning after a 36-hour shutdown only to hastily suspend flights for more than an hour in the late afternoon on one of the busiest travel days of the year. The on-going chaos raised a host of questions for British officials, including how safe is it to fly with drones around and why can’t the country’s police, military and aviation experts catch those responsible since they have been investigating the drone invasions since Wednesday night.
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Gatwick drone drama shows how even unarmed UAVs can cause economic chaos and risk to life
One of the amazing things about the recent drone incident at London Gatwick is that the appearance of two unmanned aerial vehicles flying into operational runway space prompted the closure of Britain’s second-busiest airport for more than a day. This is by no means the first incident of drones causing problems at airports, but the event at Gatwick is unusual in both the length of its duration and the presence and repeated use of multiple drones. The growing availability and affordability of consumer drones means that risks to airports, and other secure spaces will rise – and the counter-measures currently deployed against them leave room for improvement and need to be more widely adopted.
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U.K.’s Gatwick Airport closed after drones fly over runways
Several sightings of unmanned aerial vehicles over the airport’s runway grounded and rerouted flights overnight. Gatwick is Britain’s second-busiest airport after Heathrow. The police said the drone flights were a “deliberate act to disrupt the airport,” but that there were “absolutely no indications to suggest this is terror-related.” In July 2018, the United Kingdom made it illegal to fly a drone within one kilometer (0.6 miles) of an airport, in an effort to tackle the issue.
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Airport security screening without queues
Researchers have invented a device that could be developed into ultra-sensitive cameras for security screening which would not require people to queue at airports. Other applications could include smaller and safer sensors for driverless vehicles.
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TSA’s roadmap for airport surveillance moves in a dangerous direction
The Transportation Security Administration has set out an alarming vision of pervasive biometric surveillance at airports, which cuts against the right to privacy, the “right to travel,” and the right to anonymous association with others.
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Improving speed, accuracy of biometric scanning at security checkpoints
Balancing speed and security at checkpoints, like airports, is essential to ensuring safe, reliable travel. Many of these checkpoints are increasingly using biometric technology to improve speed and reliability. While recent improvements in biometrics have lowered failure to match rates, many systems fail to quickly acquire biometric information in the first place. DHS S&T is working on designing a standard security checkpoint process to test the ability of biometric identity systems to acquire and match images from a diverse volunteer population within a realistic time constraint.
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Winners announced in $1.5 million Passenger Screening Algorithm Challenge
DHS S&T and TSA the other day announced the eight winners of the Passenger Screening Algorithm Challenge. The prize competition solicited new automated detection algorithms from individuals and entities that can improve the speed and accuracy of detecting small threat objects and other prohibited items during the airport passenger screening process.
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Data science improves lie detection
Someone is fidgeting in a long line at an airport security gate. Is that person simply nervous about the wait? Or is this a passenger who has something sinister to hide? Even highly trained Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport security officers still have a hard time telling whether someone is lying or telling the truth – despite the billions of dollars and years of study that have been devoted to the subject. Researchers are using data science and an online crowdsourcing framework called ADDR (Automated Dyadic Data Recorder) to further our understanding of deception based on facial and verbal cues.
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High-ranking Russian GRU officer linked to downing of MH17
A new report from a British investigative group, establishes, for the first time, the involvement of a high-ranking Russian military intelligence officer in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) over eastern Ukraine in 2014. The 25 May report comes a day after the Dutch-led international Joint Investigative Team (JIT) said it had concluded the Buk missile that downed the MH17 was fired by Russia’s 53rd Antiaircraft Missile Brigade from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine.
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DHS S&T, TSA seek innovative solutions to enhance security screening
DHS S&T and TSA are seeking innovative solutions from startups to enhance security screening. the new solicitation seeks solutions from startups that recognize, interpret and adapt to changes in objects, materials and other aspects of passenger property.
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Securing U.S. skies
Extended stretches of U.S. land borders invite illegal entry on the ground, and U.S. coastlines are often used for unauthorized seaborne entry. New, creative attempts at illegal activity in these domains are a daily occurrence. Aerial threats pose a different challenge as they have no natural barriers restricting them — land or coastal. Commercialization of drone technology, for all the beneficial opportunities it provides, also enables a new medium for criminal activity and other homeland security threats.
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