Montreal inventor unveils 3-D baggage scanner
Written by on February 9th, 2010 in Latest News.
A Montreal inventor has developed a three-dimensional baggage scanner that he says can make air travel safer and more convenient for passengers.
William Awad is also putting the finishing touches on a more modest body scanner machine, which highlights metal or organic material on a generic human outline, but does not show the contours under people’s clothing.
However, his toughest challenge could prove to be getting his machines into airports. During a recent demonstration in Awad’s Montreal office, when he put a carry-on suitcase through a conventional baggage scanner, nothing of concern showed up.
Then, when the bag was put through Awad’s machine — which has the power to reveal many of the blind spots inside suitcases — several knives and stimulated explosives were found.
Reid Morden, a former director of Canada’s spy agency CSIS, called Awad’s inventions a quantum step forward in passenger safety.
“The current technology is really passé and the people who want to do bad things in the air, and there are a lot of them, are increasingly sophisticated,” he said.
But it will be a challenge for a small Canadian company to crack the U.S.-dominated airline security market, said Andrew Thomas, editor of the Journal of Transportation Security.
Obtaining approval from the American Transportation Security Administration is a political process more than anything, he said.
“There still is the ability to influence the process through congressional or bureaucratic connections and you could just simply look at the board of directors of a lot of these companies to see that there is an influence there from former government officials.”
Awad said he has started the lengthy process to obtain TSA certification, which is key to getting into Canadian airports.
In the meantime, Awad is in talks to install his machines in prisons, courts and hotels, mostly outside Canada.
