October 16, 2006—The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have captured seven awards for developing advanced technologies with commercial potential. The awards were given by the trade journal R&D Magazine for being among the top 100 industrial innovations worldwide for 2005. Three of the technologies applicable to certain facilities are listed below.
- The ELITE (Easy Livermore Inspection Test for Explosives) explosives detector is sensitive to more than 30 different explosives, making it one of the most effective explosive detection systems available, says LLNL. It is designed for one-time use and can be disposed of as regular (non-hazardous) waste. Several of the devices can fit easily into a shirt pocket and can be used, for example, on vehicle door handles during routine traffic stops, on surfaces and door handles of suspicious parked vehicles, or on suspicious packages.
- The new high-precision radiation detector called UltraSpec operates at very low temperatures, and could assist security officials in identifying even small amounts of nuclear materials. Developed in conjunction with VeriCold Technologies GmbH of Germany, UltraSpec offers comparable precision to mass spectrometers for quantifying material composition, yet its operation also is automated so that non-specialists can operate it with the push of a button.
- The Sonoma Persistent Surveillance System offers the first integrated, broad-area, high-resolution, real-time motion imagery system for surveillance applications, says LLNL. Sonoma is reportedly unique in its ability to provide continuous, real-time video imagery of an area the size of a small city with resolutions sufficient to track up to 8,000 moving objects within the field of view.
