Next-Generation Heartbeat Detector Significantly Reduces False Positives
At a time when trafficking in human beings and mass migration have become almost workaday challenges – in terms of their frequency and immediacy – the development of systems to rapidly and efficiently check for, identify and locate the presence of humans seeking to avoid detection has become an imperative. Recognising this, UK-based ClanTect Ltd has just launched a highly portable, new-generation Human Presence Wireless Detection System, designed specifically for mobile patrol units and vehicle check points, to provide a rapid, highly accurate, non-intrusive, roadside system for detecting the presence of human beings hiding within vehicles, trucks, trailers, and containers.
ClanTect MDT Mobile is, for want of a better description, a heartbeat detector. First-generation heartbeat detection systems proved to be unreliable, being unable to isolate the very small forces generated by hidden individuals from those generated by environmental sources such as traffic, wind and machinery. In such environments, first-generation systems generate so many false positives as to make them almost unusable.
“The first-generation systems have been around for a long time and can work fine in the controlled environment of a screening shed, but outside a busy military base or port or by a roadside, first-generation systems simply cannot cope with ambient noise and wind. The key to making these systems work outside are unique algorithms developed by myself and colleagues here at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research. It is also necessary to use a specialised wind-frame, which can measure the wind accurately in real time. Together, they enable the system to extract the effect of wind noise and ground vibrations, and [to] isolate the forces emanating purely from within the target vehicle,” explained Prof Steve Daley, ClanTect CEO.
ClanTect Mobile provides a smaller, more compact, wireless device, more easily deployed at roadside VCPs, military bases, embassies or anywhere that vehicles need to be checked for hidden occupants, regardless of traffic and windy weather conditions.
ClanTect’s systems are currently deployed within a wide range of organisations in border security, prison and critical infrastructure markets. Customers include world-leading organisations, such as the UK Border Force and Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency and Britain’s national Prison Service. The systems detect tens of thousands of clandestines and fugitives each year, the company claims, with hundreds of lives being saved.
