PHYSICAL SCIENCES INC. — Department of Homeland Security SBIR Phase I: H-SB016.1-011

Description

Physical Sciences, Inc. (PSI) proposes to develop a PCS-Enabled Smart Device Toolkit that will reduce the cost of training personnel and the time required to detect, identify, and localize a radiological source. The ability to simulate the response of a radiation detector to a virtual source for training purposes will be developed. This simulation will be based on a data fusion algorithm to accurately localize the smart device using Bluetooth beacons and internal device sensors and a radiation propagation algorithm capable of describing the transmission and scattering of radiation through realistic occlusion environments. The toolkit will also be able to connect to handheld radiation detectors and receive, analyze, and display radiation measurements. The analysis the toolkit provides will include the Poisson Clutter Split algorithm developed by PSI that increases detection sensitivity by a factor of 2-3 over current commercial detection algorithms and provides real-time isotope identification. The toolkit will provide the results of this advanced algorithm to the operator from any radiation detector that complies with an open architecture for detectors developed under this program. All analysis results will be presented in a user interface optimized with basic research into the needs of end users of the technology. PSI will work with the subcontractor, FLIR Systems Inc., or other detector manufacturers to market the toolkit to customers of handheld radiation detector systems based on reductions in training costs and the detector-agnostic advanced analysis capability.