Security checks at borders are required to be increasingly thorough and fast.  There are currently two types of technologies available for this application: those that automatically detect objects concealed on a person, and those that rely on human operator analysis and interpretation in order to classify or identify body-borne threats.

The objective of TeraSCREEN is to combine these two capabilities, thus providing automatic detection and classification of body-borne threats for security screening.  This will significantly improve both efficiency and security at border checks.

TeraSCREEN aims to develop passive and active operation at several terahertz frequencies.  The resulting multi-frequency, multi-mode images will be processed automatically in real-time to reveal the location of potentially harmful objects concealed on a person.  Privacy enhancing technologies will be used: the information will be displayed to the operator on a generic computerised silhouette and no anatomical details will be shown or saved.  Terahertz radiation is non-ionizing, and reliable studies have shown that active operation in this frequency band is harmless to humans.  The automatic recognition of threats, in addition to removing privacy issues, reduces the level of attention required from the operator, which implies a reduction in the personnel necessary for continuous operation.

The TeraSCREEN Prototype System will be demonstrated at a live control point. The feedback from the End-User and Advisory Board members will facilitate, outside this project, the conversion of the prototype into an innovative security screening product that will significantly improve the security and efficiency at, and experience of, border checks.

Consortium

The consortium consists of 12 partners from academia, research and industry across Europe, who each play complementary roles in the project and are interested in exploiting the results together.

• Alfa Imaging S.A. (Coordinator) – Spain
• Universidad Pública de Navarra – Spain
• Anteral S.L. – Spain
• Science and Technology Facilities Council – UK
• Teratech Components Ltd. – UK
• Acreo Swedish ICT AB – Sweden
• OMMIC SAS – France
• Università degli studi di Roma “Tor Vergata” – Italy
• Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main – Germany
• Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. – Germany
• ICTS UK Ltd – UK
• Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg – Germany

RAL Space's Role

STFC, in the guise of RAL Space Millimetre-Wave Technology group, is leading the work-package developing the active and passive hardware components and sub-systems for the prototype system.

Further Information

For more information on TeraSCREEN visit the project website:
http://fp7-terascreen.com (link opens in a new window).

​The TeraSCREEN project has received research funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) (link opens in a new window) under grant agreement nº 312496.