DNDO Topics

DHS Science and Technology (DHS S&T) is presently in a second spiral development of the GLANSER sytstem. The technology will support the first responder community to accurately locate, track and monitor personnel inside structures during an incident, visualize the location and track responders on a geospatial map and or structure map, and provide that information in a real-time standard way between deployed responders and command elements during an incident. The system helps Incident Commanders to rapidly and effectively deploy, re-deploy and direct forces to identified at-risk personnel or understand and respond to the consequences of potential threats to their responder resources in real-time during an incident. To support and protect deployed forces in potential radiological environments, this SBIR seeks to develop novel interfaces for add-on module(s) that will leverage the capabilities offered by GLANSER to 1) communicate radiation exposure ststus (RES) of first responders to include integrated gamma and neutron dose and current dose-rate and 2) support detection and characterization of radiological threats that first responders may encounter. This latter requirement would include communicating high sensitivity count-rate data and gamma radiation spectra and isotope identification in ANSI 42.42 format. The current GLANSER system under development is intended to have an extremely small form factor, requiring the developed interface modules to be extremely compact, self-powered, and have non-proprietary interfaces to enable quick integration with GLANSER. Details on GLANSER requirments are documented in the attached BAA09-02, which was released in Jan 2009, and hsould be used to help with integration of modules from this SBIR. Additional details about GLANSER, including interface requirments, will be provided once the current developmental cycle is completed in 2010.

The Department of Homeland Security Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) is involved in developing new technology to detect neutrons including replacing He-3 for thermal and fast neutron detection. Helium-3 currently exists in limited quantities and these quantities are not enough to meet the competing needs of industry and government. This topic area is seeking to commercialize new high efficient thermal and/or fast neutron detectors. The performance of thermal neutron detector must be better than or equal to He-3 detector with reasonable size and weight. For fast neutron detectors, the efficiency must be better than 10% in the energy range of 0.01-10 MeV, and gamma rejection must be better than 10^5. Additional capabilities such as measuring energy spectrum and directionality will also be evaluated. The large volume fabrication cost should be equal to or less than existing comparable detectors without the He-3 gas cost. The proposal must include adequate performance justification for the system.