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Cargo Security

Markland, Osprey team up on illicit materials detection technology.

RIDGEFIELD, Conn. -- Markland Technologies and Osprey Data systems will combine forces to help improve cargo security, a crucial area of homeland defense.

Markland entered into an exclusive marketing and distribution agreement with Osprey to expand and improve on its current portfolio of illicit materials detection technologies. The company designed a remote sensor fusion concept, Automated Container Sensor (ACS), to complement Markland's Acoustic Core illicit materials detection technology. The combined technologies will inspect large volumes of cargo containers and facilitate detection of potential security concerns at their earliest possible opportunity. In addition, due to the automatic capability of ACS, this can be performed on 100 percent of the containers with no wait at the United States seaport or land border. The new technology addresses current vulnerabilities in cargo screening by utilizing an embedded automated technology that operates in real time.

The ACS is constructed with unique and highly differentiated polymer-based gas vapor trace sensor arrays, which are installed and embedded as a network of automated wireless monitoring devices connected into a network via Wi-Fi transmitters and receivers. The technology offers a superior solution to the current X-ray screening systems that are time consuming and subject to human errors.

Cargo inspection is an area of great concern today to the Department of Homeland Security, since currently only about 2 percent of the over 9 million cargo containers entering the United States from foreign ports each year are screened.

Markland's solution to this threat is unique because it provides for a cost effective method to perform automated primary screening on all cargo containers from origin to destination. Investigating a container over its entire life cycle is essential due to the multiple high-risk ports the container can travel to, and because 200 million containers move through U.S. ports each year. The ACS is capable of monitoring for the presence of numerous types of illicit materials simultaneously and with a detection resolution in the parts per billion range.

The ACS will be battery powered and installed in multiple locations in a container. When a container is en route, or reaches a port of entry or border crossing, it can be interrogated via wireless RF and can provide the status of the container contents as to whether or not the container has any illicit materials in it.

The ACS fusion system will take the form of multiple small units, which are placed in the cargo container and combined with Wi-Fi transmitters. Each sensor will contain a disposable proprietary polymer array capable of being programmed to detect simultaneous threats, such as explosives, bio-hazards, nuclear materials, etc.

This gas vapor trace technology has been added to Markland's suite of homeland security solutions via an exclusive marketing and distribution agreement with Osprey Data Systems of San Clemente, Calif. The two companies have agreed to develop and market integrated cargo inspection solutions to the Homeland Security and DoD markets. The gas vapor trace sensor is based on a proprietary adsorbent polymer technology, which is capable of detecting a limitless variety of illicit materials. In addition, ACS has detection resolution in the parts per billion, response times of under five seconds and production costs significantly less than those competing technologies presently being offered to the marketplace.

The two companies are working together to arrange for a demonstration to homeland security personnel of the existent working prototype ACS and associated signal processing software.