Officials at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, have offered the base as a semi-permanent test site for the Idaho Explosives Detection System, developed by the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory to detect explosives hidden in vehicles. The system uses neutron generators to “interrogate” a vehicle and cause transported materials to emit gamma rays whose explosive signatures can be identified and relayed to a laptop computer within 300 seconds. IEDS program manager Jeff Klinger says the system at Wright-Patt is “quick, inexpensive, and reliable.”
A top Pentagon tech official called on industry this week to help the military develop “lighter, more efficient” directed energy weapons designed to go on aircraft and conduct special operations missions or down drones—areas where the Air Force’s directed energy efforts have been quiet as of late.