SilentBorder | Cosmic Ray Tomograph for Identification of Hazardous and Illegal Goods hidden in Trucks and Sea Containers

Summary
Everyday our customs workers need to tackle counterfeit goods and piracy to protect the health and safety of our citizens, yet it is estimated that only a small fraction of cargo is inspected and even smaller fraction of illegal goods are detected. Today, the most widely used technology for scanning vehicles, ranging from vans and trucks to railcars, is gamma-ray and X-ray radiography. But new technologies are required for overcoming current technological shortcomings like inability to detect the materials, usage of radioactive and harmful source, low throughput to name some.
Cosmic-ray tomography (CRT) is considered as beyond the state-of-the-art technology in cargo screening. Cosmic-ray muons are highly penetrating, their average energy is about 10,000 times the energy of a typical X-ray and they are practically non-absorbable. They are suitable to identify materials hidden inside of shielded material, too thick or deep for other imaging methods. The CRT is completely passive, exploiting naturally occurring secondary cosmic radiation. Contrary to conventional X-ray or gamma-based imaging techniques it allows to distinguish between different materials and localizes it inside the cargo or vehicle by providing visualised 3D image.
We will bridge the major security gap for fast and safe inspection of large number of cargos by developing the Multi-Functional Passive Detection System. The detection capability is based on using high accuracy sensors for particle tracking in combination with beyond state-of-the art tomographic reconstruction and material classification algorithms.
The main objective of SilentBorder is to develop and validate a new high-technology CRT scanner for border guard, customs and LEAs that enables safe and fast screening, detection and identification of hazardous and illegal goods (e.g. SNM), contraband (e.g. tobacco or explosive) as well as hidden persons in up to 20’ iso containers.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101021812
Start date: 01-05-2021
End date: 30-04-2025
Total budget - Public funding: 7 471 577,00 Euro - 7 471 577,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

Everyday our customs workers need to tackle counterfeit goods and piracy to protect the health and safety of our citizens, yet it is estimated that only a small fraction of cargo is inspected and even smaller fraction of illegal goods are detected. Today, the most widely used technology for scanning vehicles, ranging from vans and trucks to railcars, is gamma-ray and X-ray radiography. But new technologies are required for overcoming current technological shortcomings like inability to detect the materials, usage of radioactive and harmful source, low throughput to name some.
Cosmic-ray tomography (CRT) is considered as beyond the state-of-the-art technology in cargo screening. Cosmic-ray muons are highly penetrating, their average energy is about 10,000 times the energy of a typical X-ray and they are practically non-absorbable. They are suitable to identify materials hidden inside of shielded material, too thick or deep for other imaging methods. The CRT is completely passive, exploiting naturally occurring secondary cosmic radiation. Contrary to conventional X-ray or gamma-based imaging techniques it allows to distinguish between different materials and localizes it inside the cargo or vehicle by providing visualised 3D image.
We will bridge the major security gap for fast and safe inspection of large number of cargos by developing the Multi-Functional Passive Detection System. The detection capability is based on using high accuracy sensors for particle tracking in combination with beyond state-of-the art tomographic reconstruction and material classification algorithms.
The main objective of SilentBorder is to develop and validate a new high-technology CRT scanner for border guard, customs and LEAs that enables safe and fast screening, detection and identification of hazardous and illegal goods (e.g. SNM), contraband (e.g. tobacco or explosive) as well as hidden persons in up to 20’ iso containers.

Status

SIGNED

Call topic

SU-BES02-2018-2019-2020

Update Date

27-10-2022
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Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.3. SOCIETAL CHALLENGES
H2020-EU.3.7. Secure societies - Protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens
H2020-EU.3.7.3. Strengthen security through border management
H2020-SU-SEC-2018
SU-BES02-2018-2019-2020 Technologies to enhance border and external security
H2020-SU-SEC-2019
SU-BES02-2018-2019-2020 Technologies to enhance border and external security