Effectiveness of quality-control aids in verifying K-9-team explosive detection performance

Susan F. Hallowell; Douglas S. Fischer; Jeffrey D. Brasher; Robert L. Malone; Garold L. Gresham; Cathy Rae

doi:10.1117/12.266782

17 February 1997 Effectiveness of quality-control aids in verifying K-9-team explosive detection performance

Susan F. Hallowell, Douglas S. Fischer, Jeffrey D. Brasher, Robert L. Malone, Garold L. Gresham, Cathy Rae

Proceedings Volume 2937, Chemistry- and Biology-Based Technologies for Contraband Detection; (1997) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.266782
Event: Enabling Technologies for Law Enforcement and Security, 1996, Boston, MA, United States

Abstract

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and supporting agencies conducted a developmental test and evaluation (DTE) to determine if quality control aids (QCAs) could be developed that would provide effective surrogates to actual explosives used for training and testing K-9 explosives detection teams. Non-detonable surrogates are required to alleviate logistics and contamination issues with explosives used sa training aids. Comparative K-9 team detection performance for explosives used as training aids and QCAs configurations of each explosive type were evaluated to determine the optimal configuration for the QCA configuration of each explosive type were evaluated to determine the optimal configuration for the QCAs. The configurations were a paper patch impregnated with a solution of the explosive, a cloth pouch filed with small amounts of solid explosive, and the non-hazardous explosive for security training and testing material. The DTE was conducted at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, where the K-9 teams undergo initial training. Six FAA certified operational teams participated. All explosives and QCAs were presented to the K-9 teams using a 10 scent box protocol. The results show that K-9 team as are more sensitive to explosives than the candidate QCAs. More importantly, it was discovered that the explosives at Lackland AFB are cross-contaminated, meaning that explosives possessed volatile artifacts from other explosives. There are two potential hypotheses explaining why the dogs did not detect the QCAs. First, the cross-contamination of Lackland training explosives may mean that K-9 teams are only trained to detect the explosives with the most volatile chemical signatures. Alternatively, the QCA configurations may have been below the trained detection threshold of the K-9s. It is recommended that K-9 teams train on uncontaminated odors from properly designed QCAs to ensure that dogs respond to the appropriate explosive components, and not some other constituent or contaminant.

Citation Download Citation

Susan F. Hallowell, Douglas S. Fischer, Jeffrey D. Brasher, Robert L. Malone, Garold L. Gresham, and Cathy Rae "Effectiveness of quality-control aids in verifying K-9-team explosive detection performance", Proc. SPIE 2937, Chemistry- and Biology-Based Technologies for Contraband Detection, (17 February 1997); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.266782

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