Tech vs. terrorism.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

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For every threat to the homeland, there's a business that has a technology waiting in the wings to counter a would-be terrorist's moves. Many of these are so-called dual use technologies--things that began as a solution in one field, and are now being applied to homeland security. X-rays, for example, were first used a century ago to take pictures inside the human body. Today, the Transportation Security Administration uses low doses to peer underneath clothes to ferret out weapons or bombs.

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The market is vast, yet it is a tough one. There are thousands of first responder departments in the United States, but selling new products to them may mean a lot of time on the road. No single entity buys gas masks for every fire station in America. And these municipal, county and state communities aren't exactly rolling in taxpayer funds right now.

"You still have to sell one courthouse at a time," says Joe Dyer, who has the task of marketing $160,000 chemical-weapon sniffing robots to municipalities for iRobot Corp.

Despite this, the drive to protect the nation from threats is sparking innovation.

Not surprisingly, many of them are sensor-related. Whether they are designed to search out weapons of mass destruction, homemade bombs or detect clandestine tunnels, discovering threats before they can be employed remains one of the Department of Homeland Security's greatest challenges.

Here are a few up-and-coming counterterrorism technologies adapted for the homeland security field with the potential to make an impact in the coming years.

Lasers Reveal What's Inside Suspicious Packages

* Suspicious packages are an everyday occurrence that bomb squads must deal with in a timely manner. Vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices--car bombs--are less common, but they can be devastating as the 1995 attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City proved.

A Maryland-based startup wants to use lasers to inspect the outside of almost anything that could contain an explosive, or even a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapon.

The problem would-be terrorists have is that constructing these devices inevitably leaves residues on the outside of their containers.

"Unless you are fastidious and you are in clean room in a [protective] suit and covered from head to toe, you're going to get residues on something. And if there are residues, you can detect," said Diane Wong, applications scientist at A3 Technologies, LLC, of Aberdeen, Md.

The company uses a technology called laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy to find the invisible residues. The operator of the system points a laser at a suspicious package and fires. The pinpoint beam of energy creates a spark of light--or plasma--that is read by optics. Each element on the periodic table has a unique fingerprint. The optics feed the light reading into a computer with software that tells the operator what is on the outside of the package or vehicle.

"Even radiological elements like radium and plutonium will give off a certain wavelength or color," Wong said.

"It's very simple technology but there is a lot of information to be gained from this," she added. The laser can be fired at solids, liquids or gases.

The technology had been around for years, but mostly existed in university laboratories. No one had married the lasers, optics and computer algorithms, explained A3's Vice President of Operations John Plumer.

That was until the war in Iraq and the roadside bomb threat began a search for sensors that could uncover IEDs. The Joint EID Defeat Organization funded some demonstrations of the technology at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif., and the Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz.

Now the company wants to market a suite of technologies for first responders. The sensor can come in handheld version, or a portable system in a suitcase-sized container that...