ATOM · Airport detection and Tracking Of dangerous Materials by passive and active sensors arrays

The overall objective of project is to contribute to improve the security in the airport area and, thus, on board of departing aircrafts by: • detecting and identifying, without interfering neither with the normal passengers flows, nor with the normal airport operations, the presence of hazardous materials or tools, concealed (under clothes or inside bags) by ill-intentioned people circulating inside airports and that could deliver attacks; • tracking the movements of those threatening people concealing those forbidden items, so that they can easily be localized by security operators. The project intends to study, design and develop the functional prototype of an innovative multi-sensor based system integrating active and passive radar sensors, able to survey wide airport areas without requiring the passengers cooperation by detecting hazardous materials/tools and tracking threatening people or containers; the system will increase the security level not only in the gate area (behind metal detector), but also at a preliminary stage, starting from the airport arriving/departure halls. The approach to be followed foresees two separate and integrated controls: 1. one at the Terminal accesses (between sliding or revolving doors, etc ..) equipped with innovative active devices, not interfering with passengers transit and able to detect and identify dangerous tools (guns, knifes, non-metallic weapons, explosives, etc.) concealed under clothes or inside bags, without requiring passengers to remove their clothes or to empty out their bags; 2. the other in the airport halls before the gate area equipped with new passive RF sensors not interfering with passengers transit and able to track suspicious people/containers. The integrated controls information will be managed in a secure way within the airport information networks allowing security operators to face threats in the most suitable way, minimizing the risk to other people inside the Terminal area.