Funding adds urgency in getting baggage-screen device to market

Funding adds urgency in getting baggage-screen device to market

By Scott Kirsner, The Boston Globe, 10/6/2003

Richard Bijjani's problem is that peanut butter looks a lot like plastic explosives. So does the leather sole of a shoe and a bar of chocolate. The machines that scan checked baggage on its way to the belly of a 747 can get confused, and sound a false alarm, since the density of peanut butter, shoe leather, and chocolate is not much different from the chemical putty that could blow an airplane out of the sky.

Bijjani is the chief technology officer at a Bedford start-up called Reveal Imaging Technologies, which plans to announce this week that it has raised $10 million in venture capital to build and market a new kind of baggage-screening technology. The company has also received a grant of $2.3 million from the Transportation Security Agency, and recruited former FAA administrator Jane Garvey to serve on its board.

Bijjani says that the machine he's developing will be smaller than the current generation of screening technology and much better at discerning peanut butter from plastic explosives because it will analyze not just an object's density but also its chemical make-up using both high- and low-energy X-rays.

Scattered around his office are items like a Norelco electric razor, a Sony boom box, and a NEC Versa laptop, all cleverly packed with plastic explosives. (Actually, it's a non-explosive stand-in for plastic explosives used for testing purposes.) "We use these to test our analysis," Bijjani explains. "We want to build a machine that even I can't fool. It should be so good that even its inventor can't slip a bomb through it.

"It's surprising that a start-up could get backing from venture capitalists to build a sophisticated piece of hardware with the aim of selling it, at least initially, to a single customer: the federal government. And the company will have to move fast: established competitors like InVision Technologies and L-3 Communications are already selling products to the TSA, and airports like Logan are already making big decisions about how they will screen passengers' checked baggage.

Logan and the TSA, for example, have already spent more than $180 million to build what's called an in-line baggage screening facility. When you check your bags, they're whisked away and screened for explosives before they're put on the plane. The drawback is that passengers aren't present in the event that a security agent needs to pop the latches on their Samsonite. At other airports, like T.F. Green in Providence, baggage is screened in the airport lobby, which allows passengers to supervise any latch-popping, but it forces them to stand in yet another line after they've checked in.

Congress has mandated that all airports screen 100 percent of checked bags by the end of this year -- but many of them will use a patchwork of temporary measures to do so, including machines in the lobby, bomb-sniffing dogs, and hand searches. Reveal wants to sell its technology to airports before they do what Logan did -- spend scads of money on a separate in-line facility for baggage screening. T.F. Green is an ideal potential customer -- an airport that doesn't want to force customers to stand in a third security line and one that eagerly anticipates moving the hulking baggage scanners out of its lobby.

Reveal is developing a machine that would be small enough to be installed behind the check-in desk, screening baggage for explosives as passengers are checked in for their flights. (Current explosives detectors are the size of a small SUV; Reveal's system will be about the size of the X-ray machine that scans your carry-on baggage.)

The machine essentially gives each bag a quick CAT scan. If there's nothing suspicious, it gets the green light and can be sent onto the baggage conveyor system. If something seems fishy, an image of the bag is sent to an operator in a back room for evaluation. Reveal's system outlines potential threats in red, based on density and chemical composition. If there's still a question about what's in the bag, the passenger and his suitcase can be sent to a special area to have the bag searched by hand.

This solves three problems -- it eliminates an extra queue for baggage screening, it gets the big SUV-size machines out of airport lobbies, and it also allows passengers to be present when their bags are opened. Reveal CEO Michael Ellenbogen says it's a cheaper, faster, and simpler solution, because it doesn't require setting up a separate facility for in-line screening, as Logan did. And he anticipates that labor costs will be lower than putting big machines in the lobby.

The big challenges for Reveal will be getting its machine certified by the TSA and into the market quickly, and persuading airports to adopt the behind-the-counter approach to screening checked bags before they commit to a different strategy -- as Logan and San Francisco have done.

Ellenbogen is optimistic on both counts. He expects to have a test machine operating in a local airport later this year and to submit a final version for TSA approval early in 2004. And, he contends, "airports want their lobbies back. This approach is the least invasive to their normal operational flow.

"Reveal will have to prove that its machine will reduce the TSA's labor costs in airports and obviate the need to build separate facilities for baggage screening -- because the cost of its equipment won't be cheaper than the existing technology. The company will also have to battle the inherent bias against start-ups. Will Reveal be able to install and support its machines as well as the incumbent players?"

People will try to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt," Ellenbogen says. "You've got to develop credibility and demonstrate that you have a reliable solution.

"The grant from the TSA is a good sign that the agency is interested in Reveal's approach. The company's employees have been involved before in getting other airport screening technology certified. Another good sign is that Reveal's first machine went from a blank sheet of paper to aworking prototype in just nine months.

The company will need to maintain that momentum. And not get fooled by peanut butter.

Scott Kirsner is a contributing editor at Fast Company. He can be reached at skirsner@verizon.net.