Lab-in-a-Box

BioWatch 3 detectors are now being tested.

An artist’s rendition of the planned “box.”

The state-of-the-art Federal system for monitoring the air to detect harmful biological agents is scheduled for another upgrade--this time, to one that’s fully automated. The defense of the future will involve a self-contained “lab-in-a-box” that can analyze air samples from strategic locations around the clock and quickly alert agencies to a threat … all by itself.

This is the two-pronged goal of research behind the Generation 3 BioWatch Program, which is funded by the Chemical and Biological Division at the DHS S&T Directorate. Specifically, the program--also called BioWatch 3--is seeking to develop a quick-response, early-warning system to replace BioWatch 2. Currently, air samples must be collected manually, and a full laboratory analysis is needed before a threat can be determined.

The key to BioWatch 3, however, will be the Bioagent Autonomous Networked Detector (BAND). BAND will be equipped to automatically collect samples, analyze for threat agents, and then notify nearby authorities remotely if it suspects that an agent is harmful or out of the ordinary. BAND will be capable of aerosol collection, molecular analysis, and the identification of bacteria, toxins, and viruses. The system will also retain an archive of each sample collected for confirmation and forensic analyses.

“The detection technologies for the BAND system may vary across the board,” says Edward Rhyne, who manages the Generation 3 BioWatch Program. “We’re looking at standard laboratory techniques, as well as highly innovative and revolutionary methods.”

BAND will provide other advantages over the current system. It will, for example, be able to detect three times as many biological agents, and it will cost about 70 percent less to operate. This savings will enable an increase in the coverage area from which samples are collected. In addition, BAND will be capable of operating continuously for a 30-day cycle before maintenance is required.

BioWatch 3 is expected to be pilot tested in fiscal year 2008 and fully deployed between fiscal years 2009 and 2012.

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See You in Cyberspace

Red-shirted “TF496 Weir” (OIC’s Tony Frater) watches fellow OICers scope out their conference room in NOAA’s virtual island, Meteora.

If you’re an urban planner, you may learn how a proposed road could affect gridlock by “building” a city in Sim City. If you’re an environmental engineer, you might explore “eco what-ifs” in Sim World. But if you’re a DHS emergency-response planner … you’re stuck in Real World 101.

Or are you? What if a 3-D “virtual” world could help emergency-response experts plan, control, and (just maybe) carry out a response to a real-world emergency? For months, this question had been bouncing around the halls of the S&T Directorate’s Office for Interoperability and Compatibility (OIC), which is part of the Command, Control, and Interoperability Division. OICers could dream it, but could they do it?

On June 8, a half-dozen OICers took the first step to find out … by teleporting into Linden Lab’s Second Life, a 3-D graphical world that, like the Matrix, blurs the line between real life and virtual life.

No one, of course, actually teleported; instead, participants moused, keystroked, and used their touchpads to make their personal “avatars” walk, fly, schmooze, and explore “islands” owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other agencies.

In Meteora’s exhibit hall, OIC support staffer “StephR Beck” (Stephanie Rivera) explores how NOAA uses Second Life to reach out to citizens in the real world.

“We’re just getting our feet wet,” says Tony Frater, the Division’s Research Director of Communication, Interoperability, and Compatibility. Once in NOAA’s virtual world, Frater and his teammates--chosen, he explained to them, “because you were techy enough”--island-hopped to see how other agencies are using Second Life to reach out to citizens, conduct day-to-day e-government, team up, and plan emergency response. Leaving their Blackberries behind, the intrepid explorers “landed” in Meteora, a NOAA island built to simulate a city that has been destroyed by a tsunami.

Think of Second Life as The Sims 2--a global Sims running on the Web--but with real-world consequences. OIC stakeholders can mingle with one another and swap knowledge with information systems--for example, with maps of weather, buildings, and airborne pathogens.

The gathering was the first of several designed to let OIC stakeholders get their feet wet in virtual conferencing. Later, OIC will test how practically a far-flung community of emergency-response thinkers can meet up in the virtual world to collaborate during an emergency. Will OIC, like NOAA, one day have its own island? “We’re definitely thinking of that as our next step,” says Frater.

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When the Levee Breaks

Researchers are aiming to prevent levee breaks and quickly repair breaks when they occur, as demonstrated in this conceptual video from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, an S&T Directorate partner.

A hard rain’s a-gonna fall, Dylan sang. But when rain and storm surges fall on lands protected by weak levees, this means trouble … big trouble. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were devastating reminders of this frightening fact. How then can we limit trouble when a levee breaches or, better yet, prevent such a break from ever happening again?

“Any solution will be difficult and challenging,” says Wil Laska, who manages the Levee Strengthening and Damage Mitigation Project at the S&T Directorate. “But first, we’ve got to ensure that all the levees in the United States are solid, built correctly and well. We also have to make sure that all repairs are attended to on a rigorously timed basis. No ifs, ands, or buts.”

The levee project is a comprehensive one, spanning four years and operating in three phases. In the first phase, researchers will identify potential technologies and procedures that can rapidly and affordably indicate problem locations along a levee, strengthen these existing areas, provide innovative designs for new levees, and repair any breaches. Subsequent phases will test and demonstrate the technologies and procedures. For instance, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center has developed the Levee Condition Assessment Technology, or LevCAT, which combines geophysical instrumentation with airborne and ground-based research to essentially “see” weak soil under levees.

When considering levee systems, however, there’s another issue at play. River basins, marshes, deltas, savannahs, and other natural buffer zones all protect us from dangerous storm surges. These are often eroding away by the day.

Laska is taking on this problem too. The project also aims to develop approaches and technologies that will duplicate the effect of marshland and reduce the strength of surges. Solutions being considered include inflatable and drop-in structures that last just long enough to prevent severe damage, fast-growing vegetation to rapidly imitate the effect of marshlands in lowering tides, and ways to reroute flood waters and flood-proof critical infrastructure.

Laska is part of a small group of experts focused on S&T Directorate projects called Homeland Innovative Prototypical Solutions, or HIPS. These projects are designed to deliver prototype-level demonstrations of potential game-changing technologies in two to five years. Yes, they come with a moderate-to-high risk of failure, but they can also yield a high payoff if successful.

“All of these goals are enormously ambitious, but that’s the nature of the work,” he says. “Right now, we’re looking at just about any decent idea.”

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Seeing Is Believing

Purdue researchers are working to produce data displays for first responders on smartphones and PDAs, much like the university’s system for viewing game stats.

Football can save lives. Well … not exactly. But researchers at Purdue University are thinking just that when the Boilermakers are at home, playing in Ross-Ade Stadium. In particular, DHS-sponsored scientists at the school are looking at how fans in the stands are able to watch replays and view game stats, right on their smartphones and PDAs. The scientists want to use the same kinds of sensor technologies to show where people, exits, and critical lifesaving equipment are located during an emergency.

These are experts who study complex ways in which information is displayed, and they want to create easy-to-use visual tools for homeland security. “We want to help first responders,” says Purdue’s David Ebert, who directs the research. “A lot of firefighters are asking for ways to get and view data on their handhelds--in real time--about what’s going on inside stadiums and big buildings. It’s a major need.”

Ebert leads Purdue’s Regional Visualization and Analytics Center, which is part of the university-based DHS Centers of Excellence, managed by the S&T Directorate’s Office of University Programs. He and his team have been analyzing eStadium, a collaborative project among scientists and technicians at the university; it delivers on-demand information about football games to fans over a wireless network. The researchers are seeking to answer questions like “How well does the network perform?” “What is the most meaningful way to display the data?” and “How can network engineers easily curb noise or other kinds of interference?”

With eStadium as their test bed, the team is now trying to develop ways to let first responders glance at their handheld devices to clearly and quickly see how the crowds are concentrated and where the equipment and exits are. Techniques would then be needed to sort through all of the information, make sense of the crowd patterns, and display it simply on a small screen. Such technologies would be especially valuable if an evacuation is needed during a large sporting event such as the Super Bowl.

Although more research is needed, Ebert is hopeful that the project will soon move into development. The goal, he says, is to produce off-the-shelf, affordable technologies that would be available to all types of fire departments and emergency crews.

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S&T Snapshots is a monthly newsletter produced by the DHS Science and Technology Directorate in partnership with the Homeland Security Institute. HSI is a Studies and Analysis Federally Funded Research and Development Center.