Problem
Alpha Omega was hired to develop a walk-through metal detector that met or exceeded the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Standards.
Solution
We led a joint effort to develop the electronics and packaging for the new detector with the customer's engineers and an industrial design company. Extensive research and development went into the design of the sensitive electronics and detector coil arrays. A similar effort went into the design of an aesthetically pleasing and functional package.
We wrote code for seven processors and developed the inter processor communications scheme and the metal detection algorithms. The detection program derived information from sixteen different physical detection zones to determine the size and location of objects within the detector. The machine's operating system allows remote monitoring and control over the Internet.
Our goal was to detect certain very small objects of interest to police and security agencies, and this required very sensitive electronics. We designed an extremely low noise analog front end that could detect sub-microvolt signals. System control was accomplished with an off-the-shelf processor card, powered by a custom designed ATX power supply with a built-in uninterruptible power supply. We also designed the high power transmitter driver, the control panel and display and the traffic sensor electronics.
Extensive experimentation and simulation went into the electronics design. Similarly, quite a bit of CAD design work went into the configuration of the electronics assembly before settling on a design that allowed easy rapid assembly and disassembly and maintenance. We also designed an automated test and calibration system to test sensitivity to target speed and orientation.
Results
The system is in pre-production development.