Inactive

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate's (S&T) Transportation Securuty Laboratory (TSL) Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) branch performs a range of technical ass... The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate's (S&T) Transportation Securuty Laboratory (TSL) Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) branch performs a range of technical assessments and evaluations on technologies within this area to understand system capabilities and detection performance unique to each system. These evaluations often require the use of Mock Passengers (MP) who assist with the data collection by concealing threat objects and presenting detection scenarios to the system. This MP involvement is critical to the evaluation of a system and the success of our mission. However, certain threat objects such as Homemade Explosives (HME)s are considered too hazardous to involve a MP in the data collection. In these cases, the use of a detection phantom, which is a full-sized model of a passenger which can be presented to the system instead of an actual MP. Phantoms are custom made with an exterior coating which mimics human skin. This coating is specially formulated and validated for specific system characteristics, such as operating frequency. A phantom created for one system may not be valid for use in another system, therefore multiple phantoms may be required to test a variety of systems.