Threat Assessment

Problem

• Rapid Development: A functional prototype needed to be demonstrated within 60 days. The entire application needed to be developed, tested and deployed within 120 days.
• High Profile: The application would be used at one of the highest-profile public events in the world.
• Multilingual: The system had to support multiple languages.
• Multimedia: Video, photo, text and data had to be captured, evaluated and the results made available to users.
• Real Time: The system needed to respond to changing events very rapidly, imposing the minimum burden on incoming cargo. The entire threat assessment process had to be completed in 15 seconds.
• 100% Availability: System could not ever be out of service, for any reason.

Solution

• Rapid Development: System was delivered within the time constraints.
• Multilanguage User Interface: A user interface supporting 11 different languages was developed.
• Multimedia Integration: Video, still photo, text and scientific data was organized and stored for archival purposes as well as making threat assessments in real time.
• Real Time Performance: Threat assessment able to be determined <15 sec.
• Management by Exception: The system used an exception model to allow security personnel to monitor multiple lanes of cargo simultaneously.
• Full Availability: Redundancy and backup processes were used to provide successful full availability.

Benefit

• Increased Security: Visitors and participants benefited from an additional layer of security to protect them from attacks with radiological materials.
• Minimized Commercial Disruption: Cargo movement was maintained while still enhancing security.
• Scale: The federal agency is preparing to implement the system on a permanent basis to strengthen national homeland security