The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is continuing testing of smartphone-sized nuclear material detectors with an eye toward deployment in 2018.
The agency’s 2-year-old SIGMA program aims to develop more effective, less expensive devices for detecting even minute amounts of nuclear and radiological materials that might be used in a terrorist attack against the United States.
Toward that, DARPA this year spent a month testing more than 100 networked detectors at a large-scale transportation hub operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, according to an Aug. 23 press release. The technology “provided more than a 100-fold increase in ability to locate and identify sources of radiation as compared to currently installed systems,” the release says.
The “pager” systems cost one-tenth as much as standard sensors but offer 10 times the speed in detection of gamma and neutron radiation, according to DARPA. The agency said it met its price target of 10,000 of the detectors for $400 each.
The SIGMA gadgets have been tested in over 10 “real-world” deployments and drills in the last two years, the agency said. An exercise involving more than 1,000 devices is scheduled in Washington, D.C., before the end of 2016.
Further demonstrations at the city and regional levels are planned for 2017, followed by deployment to local, state, and federal organizations in 2018. Ultimately, the networked devices are intended to be folded into a larger web of detection systems on large roadways, bridges, and additional infrastructure, along with vehicles.
DARPA declined to answer additional questions about the program or make agency officials available for interview.
The SIGMA program should be cornerstones of a number of detection methods, including two being prepared by the Homeland Security Department’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, Vincent Tang, program manager for DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office, said in the press release. These programs are the Radiation Awareness and Interdiction Network (RAIN), which is intended to cover roadways for dangerous materials carried by vehicles; and the Mobile Urban Radiation Search (MURS) project, “which aims to provide an advanced mobile detection capability that could adjudicate detection alarms encountered by SIGMA or RAIN,” the release says.
SIGMA is also developing larger detection systems for deployment in vehicles or fixed sites. These also would be less expensive and more powerful than current technologies.
“For example, large SIGMA neutron detectors have now shown twice the sensitivity compared to existing neutron-detection drive-through portals,” the release says. “Multiple vendors reached the price target of $5,000 per unit, which is approximately one-tenth the cost of today’s comparable large neutron detectors, while achieving or exceeding this required performance. Hundreds of large SIGMA detectors are in the process of being networked for gamma and neutron radiation detection at a number of critical locations and on vehicles.”
Various government and private entities have contributed to and received funding from the SIGMA program, both in the United States and abroad. Among the contributors are the Lawrence Livermore, Lawrence Berkeley, Los Alamos, and Oak Ridge national laboratories.
