The Dhs Is Getting A Wearable Radiation Detector

Huban Gowadia, Director of the DHS’s Domestic Nuclear Detection office, last Thursday blogged that the Department has awarded a multimillion dollar contract to develop such a device. The DHS is calling it the “Human Portable Tripwire.” She writes: The device will be used by the Coast Guard, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the TSA. The project has been in the works for a while; the DHS posted the first notice of the contract in June 2014. The original solicitation called for a system “capable of detecting and identifying radiation/nuclear threats, storing the identification results, and communicating those results in real-time (wired and/or wireless)” to ReachBack, a chemical and radiation threat analysis center. In September, the DHS awarded the $24 million contract to FLIR Detection. With luck, the devices will help detect threats better than current practices. Without luck, well, we can always play Fallout in preparation. DefenseOne