New Technologies Aim to Enhance Airport Security Speed Up Lines

Companies are displaying their newest technology designed to help increase efficiency at airport security.

• By Sydny Shepard
• Jan 24, 2019

The evolution of airport security makes it difficult to know what to expect at TSA checkpoints these days, but companies around the world have made it their mission to design and implement new technology that will help to increase the efficiency of airport screening and get you to your flight faster.

Displayed last week at London's Future Aviation Security Solutions showcase event were several new technologies that, if approved by aviation security experts, could help improve your experience at the airport. One of the most innovative ideas at the show case was a scanner that could detect explosives hidden in shoes.

The shoe scanner, made by company Scanna, is still in the prototype stage and uses a grid of sensing electrodes to analyze shoes and what they contain. When the machine detects something that should not be in a pair of shoes, it alerts staff so they can interfere. 

The device only takes a few seconds to work and the company hopes that it could, one day, be integrated in with a full body scanner so that passengers would no longer need to remove their shoes. It could even be used on passengers while they wait in line at security.

Another company, Sequestim, is working to eliminate the hassle of removing coats and items such as phones and wallets from pockets. The company is working to combine artificial intelligence with a more sensitive version of the millimeter wave body software already used in airports today. 

The technology would allow passengers to pass through its scanners weathering their coats with full pockets and still identify the concealed threats.