Advanced Checked Baggage Screening Systems

This is a synopsis of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) Call 70RSAT20RB00000003 under DHS BAA HSHQDC-16-R-B0004, Apex Screening at Speed (Apex SaS). The requirement to be solicited is entitled - Advanced Checked Baggage Screening Systems. The NAICS is 541715 Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (Except Nanotechnology and Biotechnology). The Product and Service Codes are AT42 R&D- Other Transportation: Passenger Safety and Security (Applied Research/Exploratory Development) and AT43 R&D - Other Transportation: Passenger Safety and Security (Advanced Development). The solicitation will not be a small business set-aside. It will be available for full and open competition. The Government anticipates awarding multiple stand-alone contracts as a result of the solicitation. The Government is not utilizing a General Services Administration Schedule or any Government-wide or multiple-award contract to issue an order. No response to this synopsis is requested. A solicitation will be posted on beta.SAM.gov. Once a solicitation is released, all responsible sources may submit one or more white papers which shall be considered by the agency. Offerors submitting white papers will be notified of white paper evaluation results and invited to submit full proposals. (Submission of a white paper will be required in order to submit a full proposal.) Notification of selection for an award is anticipated in late fiscal year 2020 or early fiscal year 2021. The DHS S&T BAA portal found at https://baa2.st.dhs.gov/ will be utilized for submissions. The following is a summary of the requirement: The screening of passenger baggage using traditional Explosives Detection Systems (EDS) for checked baggage faces many challenges in developing a broadly applicable detection capability for explosive threats that addresses commercial, military and homemade explosives (HME) threats. Established primary checked baggage explosives detection technologies evolved from medical X-ray systems. These conventional transmission X-ray methods utilize two derived discriminating signatures: effective atomic number and density of screened objects. These discriminators perform well for identifying materials where variations in the chemical composition are minimal, such as commercial and military explosives. However, HMEs are usually formulated using numerous household ingredients, lack tight quality control in their preparation, and have high variations in their chemical composition. As a result, the detection of HMEs requires expansion of the system detection windows, which can result in ambiguities with many common stream-of-commerce items (other items that may be found in checked and carry-on baggage). This mischaracterization leads to significantly higher primary screening false alarm rates generating a greater demand for Transportation Security Officer (TSO) secondary screening to resolve false alarms. The net effect is increased TSO manpower requirements and reduced screening throughput, which results in higher screening costs to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and significant passenger inconvenience due to screening delays. Improvements to current checked baggage screening systems are needed to provide an acceptable level of detection on all threats, significantly reduce primary screening false alarms, and improve overall screening throughput. Enhancing the ability to reduce/resolve aviation security screening alarms is identified in the TSA Strategy Plan (2018-2026) and by the Aviation Security Integrated Product Team as a priority capability gap. The TSA's Electronic Baggage Screening Program has established an operational performance objective to require checked baggage primary automated screening performance to demonstrate a net false alarm rate of less than 10%. To reach this goal, DHS S&T has a need to identify advanced technologies that can increase the discrimination between HMEs and stream-of-commerce clutter in checked baggage. In response to the emerging needs of the TSA, DHS S&T will pursue projects that significantly enhance current baggage screening system detection and false alarm capabilities. Minor improvements to existing capabilities are not of interest for this requirement. This acquisition seeks to continue research and development of advanced x-ray systems, material discrimination methodologies, and mature testbed prototypes into pre-commercial Checked Baggage System prototypes addressing the TSA's current and future technical challenges. The efforts under this solicitation enable technology developments from early Technology Readiness Level (TRL) levels into technologies ready for maturation into deployable solutions. This BAA will focus on five specific technical topic areas (TTAs): - Advanced X-ray Systems Development - Development and testing of full-up system engineering design models (EDMs) (TRL 3-5 level of maturity) - Advanced Algorithms and System Integration - Development/maturation of threat detection and false alarm reduction algorithms, integration into operational/prototype systems and demonstration of real time operation. - Supporting Component Technology Development - Development/maturation of system components and subsystems (such as x-ray sources and detectors) necessary to evolve laboratory and experimental prototypes into full up x-ray system designs able to meet the advanced x-ray systems requirements. - Supporting Baggage Movement Technology - Development of information-based methods to include new methods of baggage classification, screening, and transport in the checked baggage domain to enable multiple parallel screening tiers to adjudicate bag safety outside of x-ray technologies. - Developing In-Line Checked Baggage Screening Training Applications - Development of both Threat Image Projection Software (TIPS) integrated with current EDS deployments as well as the development of best practices for training and data collection with TIPS programs. All projects funded under this solicitation are expected to have a period of performance between 12 and 24 months. The periods of performance will be based on the maturity of the proposed project element, where the project falls in the development cycle, and the pathway to deployment of the project element (i.e. system, subsystem/component, application, or algorithm). The primary place of performance will be at contractor facilities and certain Government facilities designated by DHS S&T. The period of performance will vary according to TTA.