Passenger Self Screening Systems for Aviation Checkpoint

This is a synopsis of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) Call 70RSAT20RB00000002 under the DHS BAA HSHQDC-16-R-B0004, Apex Screening at Speed (Apex SaS). 

The requirement to be solicited is entitled “Passenger Self-Screening Systems Development”. The NAICS is 541715 Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (Except Nanotechnology and Biotechnology). The Product Service Code is AT42 R&D- Other Transportation: Passenger Safety and Security (Applied Research/Exploratory Development). The solicitation will not be a small business set-aside. It will be available for full and open competition. The Government anticipates awarding multiple stand-alone contracts as a result of the solicitation. The Government is not utilizing a General Services Administration Schedule or any sort of Government-wide or multiple-award contract to issue an order.

No response to this synopsis is requested. A solicitation will be posted on beta.SAM.gov.  Once a solicitation is released, all responsible sources may submit one or more white papers which shall be considered by the agency.  Offerors submitting white papers will be notified of white paper evaluation results and invited to submit full proposals.  (Submission of a white paper will be required in order to submit a full proposal.) Notification of selection for an award is anticipated in late fiscal year 2020 or early fiscal year 2021.  The DHS S&T BAA portal found at https://baa2.st.dhs.gov/ will be utilized for submissions.

The following is a summary of the requirement:

The DHS S&T Screening at Speed (SaS) program pursues transformative research and development (R&D) activities that support a future vision for increasing aviation security effectiveness from curb to gate while dramatically reducing wait times and improving the passenger experience. To enable this vision, SaS, in conjunction with the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA’s) Innovation Task Force, is considering the development of a passenger self-screening solution to transform the TSA’s concept of operations. This concept is initially targeted towards the TSA PreCheck ™ environment, but as the capability matures it may be deployed as a part of a variety of security postures.

Just like self-checkout at grocery stores, self-tagging checked baggage, or ATM machines, many passengers prefer an experience that they can complete all by themselves, at their own pace. SaS is exploring ideas to bring similar concepts to the passenger screening process.  SaS is seeking to collaborate with stakeholders to develop a solution that would:

• Enable a self-sufficient experience in the passenger screening process
• Allow for passenger on-person screening and divestment of personal property (for X-ray screening) to occur in a single step, compared to the two distinct steps that exist at airports today
• Enable passengers to directly receive on-person alarm information while divesting, and allow for the passenger self-resolution of alarms through continued divestment to reduce instances where a pat-down/secondary screening procedure would be necessary
• Allow passengers to complete the screening process more quickly
• Maintain or improve the current security posture at the airport checkpoint

This effort seeks to rapidly develop a solution to detect weapons and organic threat items hidden on passengers without the same level of Transportation Security Officer (TSO) engagement normally present in the screening process. The solution would be deployed in conjunction with an X-ray system so that a passenger may be screened while they complete the divestiture process for inspection of their accessible property. A successful solution would lead to a passenger friendly, intuitive screening process while improving security, accelerating passenger throughput, reducing pat-down rates, and reducing the overall level of contact a passenger experiences with other passengers and TSOs.

This Call will develop three components of a future passenger self-screening solution. The first effort, under technical topic area (TTA) #1, includes the systems engineering, and concept design and development of a passenger-self screening solution. This effort uses a phased approach to develop requirements, monitor progress, and reduce technical risk in a methodical way. The goal of the base period of this effort is to develop a sufficiently specified system concept where DHS S&T would be able to assess the viability of the concept and to specify high-level requirements for subsystems suitable for future research and development acquisition efforts. If all options are exercised, the final result is the delivery of design documentation that can be used in building an engineering prototype.

The second effort, under TTA #2, seeks to rapidly mature novel low to mid technology readiness level hardware systems that are capable of safely detecting anomalous passenger activity and threat items hidden on passengers or in their accessible property. DHS S&T is seeking technologies that may be matured to Technical Readiness Level (TRL) 7 in twelve months or less.

The third effort, under TTA #3, seeks to rapidly mature novel software systems that can detect anomalous passenger activity and threat items hidden on passengers or in their accessible property. DHS S&T is seeking technologies that may be matured to TRL 7 in twelve months or less.

The primary place of performance will be at contractor facilities and certain Government facilities designated by DHS S&T. The period of performance will vary according to TTA.

7/24/2020 Update:

If you are interested in this topic, please note DHS has a solicitation on similar work, specifically Use Case 2 "Video Analytics for Self-Screening at TSA Checkpoints" posted at: https://beta.sam.gov/opp/01cbeafa8c0e47428ddd30693b4c47d6/view#general