MAY 14--Sky Computers (Chelmsford, MA; www.skycomputers.com), a subsidiary of Analogic Corporation, has received an order for its SKYpack multiprocessor system to be used in the Analogic Explosive Assessment Computed Tomography (EXACT) system. The SKYpack system is the image-reconstruction engine for the EXACT system. Earlier this month Analogic received an open-ended order for up to 1000 EXACT systems from an original equipment manufacturer.
The EXACT is a multislice, dual-energy, helical-cone-beam computed-tomography scanner, and the heart of the first single-unit, second-generation explosives-detection system (EDS) certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to scan checked luggage for aircraft. Certified EDSs are being purchased by the US government for installation at major airports across the country, as mandated by Congress in the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of November 2001.
The EXACT system can examine the entire contents of a bag in one pass, obtaining 10 times more data per bag than the first generation of machines. The system creates multislice volumetric scans, making it possible to identify the key characteristics of the contents of a piece of luggage while the system's conveyor belt moves it through the machine's gantry. In a matter of seconds, the data derived from the scanner's 6000-channel data-acquisition system are analyzed and compared to numerical profiles of known explosives. Using the advanced SKYpack multiprocessor system for high-speed image processing, the EXACT system can provide the data for full, three-dimensional images of all the objects in a bag.
