Touch & Go
Next-Generation Metal Detectors Feature Improved Sensitivity and Portability

By Paula Bernier

METAL DETECTORS increasingly are moving beyond airports and prisons and into large public venues like entertainment complexes, convention halls and school campuses. As a result, more vendors are supplying metal detectors and related gear that are both more sophisticated and more portable.

Available this summer, Fisher’s M-Scope is a truly portable metal detector.

One of the latest developments is a new walk-through metal detector from Fisher Research Laboratory. The M-Scope, weighing less than 100 pounds and selling for less than $5,000, is set to go into production June 1. Matt Pope, a consultant who is helping the vendor launch the product, calls the M-Scope “the world’s first truly portable metal detector.” Unlike other “mobile” solutions, he says, the M-Scope collapses the size of a large piece of luggage, can be moved — on wheels — by one person, and can be set up or torn down in 10 minutes or less. “A lot of people say theirs are portable because two or three guys can move them with a dolly,” says Pope. However, he adds, such “cumbersome” units must be hauled in by truck and might take a couple of hours to set up.

Pope says M-Scope’s collapsible feature also could lead some customers, who are considering leasing rather than buying a metal detector, to make the long-term investment since Fisher Research Laboratory’s device is so easy to store and transport.

The M-Scope is 88 inches tall, has an 80-inch walk-through area, 36-inch-wide base and is 23 inches long. The product can use AC power, but includes a 40-hour battery. Pope says the company was able to create the small, portable unit because of its patented advances in lightweight, durable polymers and electronics.

Portability also is a key feature of the metal detectors offered by CEIA USA, which sells seven metal detectors of which four are portable, says Scott Dennison, CEO of CEIA USA.

In addition to having a major presence in airport and government installations, CEIA USA recently provided its PMD2 Elliptic for the Super Bowl, the Wright Brothers 100th anniversary and Harley Davidson’s 100th anniversary. PMD2 Elliptic is portable, weatherproof and includes its own battery packs. “It has a patented design that is aesthetically pleasing — it has a round column, like two poles — so you don’t create a prison-like environment,” says Dennison.

Garrett Metal Detectors’ PD 6500i features 33 distinct pinpoint zones.

Dennis Cunningham, international sales director at Control Screening LLC, also says his company’s products are portable, and cites one with poles only eight inches in diameter for places with line-of-sight issues, he adds.

In addition to size, sensitivity is a key issue related to metal detectors. On the one hand, security products need to be sensitive enough to pick up such threatening objects as knives and guns regardless of where they are on the individual. On the other hand, if these devices are too sensitive and detect innocuous items like jewelry, coins and belt buckles, they can adversely affect what’s known in the industry as flow through, or the rate at which individuals are moved through security checkpoints into a venue.

Barry Feldman, president of View Systems Inc., says early metal detection products were designed to detect any type of metal an individual was wearing – such as bracelets or belt buckles, metal shoelaces and the like. “There is large percentage of false positive readings, so the slightest of anything on you rings a bell. So you have the nuisance factor, and then they hand wand you,” he says.

Feldman tells the story of a judge who was shot in the courtroom. That event, he says, led the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to ask for a device that can tell between nuisances and real threats. The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) won the bid and came out with a technology that works off the magnetic core of the earth, says Feldman, who adds

Control Screening’s Checkgate Model 9000C discerns between keys and handguns.

it measures from bottom of a person’s feet to the top of the head. The patent, he says, is owned by the U.S. government, and View Systems has exclusive worldwide distribution rights. The technology is embedded in its SecureScan Weapons Detection System.

Other vendors also have developed discriminating screening devices. “In side-by-side comparisons, we have the lowest false-alarm rate in the industry,” says Dennison, explaining that

Once used at the Super Bowl, CEIA’s PMD2 Elliptic is portable and battery-powered.

CEIA USA products, which sell for $3,800 to $5,000, can discern between weapons and generally harmless personal items.

Cunningham says Control Screening’s Checkgate Model 9000, a 10-year-old product that sells for about $4,500, has had new software and program updates that also enable it to ignore small metal objects such as keys and belt buckles, while being highly discriminating for items like handguns.

Some metal detectors also help security screeners find where on a person’s body the potentially threatening item is being concealed, enabling screeners to seize the device quickly if needed.

For example, the newest product from Metorex Security Products Inc., the Metor300, is a walkthrough metal detector with eight independent detection zones, says Andrea Forconi, U.S. marketing manager for the vendor. The product also offers high sensitivity between common objects and weapons and can detect any ferrous or nonferrous metal, she adds.

Similarly, Control Screening’s Checkgate MZ-8 features a column light display comprised of eight

Metorex’ Metor300 is walk-through metal detector with eight independent detection zones.

 zones vertically and horizontally. The Checkgate MZ- 8 archway, which sells for $5,300, came on the market a little more than six months ago.

CEIA USA also offers the multizone feature in its metal detectors, says Dennison.

Garrett Metal Detectors’ PD 6500i walk-through metal detector features 33 distinct pinpoint zones for complete target coverage on the left, center and right side of the body from head to toe. The PDi features zoned pinpoint lights that indicate where a person is carrying a potentially dangerous metal object.

View Systems’ SecureScan is computer compatible, notes Felman. “We show a picture of a person walking through and will pinpoint where the object is, and it records it on a PC,” he says. The SecureScan is so sensitive, he says, it has picked up a razor blade taped to the inside of a boy’s mouth. “Currently, we will also pick up things like cell phones because the next major threat item is the cell phone gun — the antenna is the barrel. So, we presently are picking up all cell phones. In the next year we hope to have the software to differentiate between cell phones and cell phone guns.”

Detectors Meet Card Readers

THE CARD reader is one of the latest developments in metal detection.

CEIA USA’s MET Card

CEIA USA already sells a product that, in addition to detecting metal, can read an ID card carried anywhere on an individual’s body. While the MET Card has been around for four years, CEIA USA within the past year has seen a “great deal of interest” in the product, having received five additional private and government contracts for the device, says Scott Dennison, director at CEIA USA.

MET Card is used by cruise lines, entertainment arenas, Intel, Federal Express and other entities that want to alter security levels based on the individual, says Dennison. For example, a sports venue might want to lower the security level required for entrance by people with skyboxes or other VIPs, Dennison explains. In addition to offering variable security levels, MET Card keeps a record of when individuals enter and exit the facility. Dennison would not disclose pricing for the product.

Meanwhile, View Systems Inc. is working to marry its SecureScan concealed weapons detection device with School Technology Management’s Comprehensive Attendance, Administration and Security System (CAASS) System. In use at some schools, CAASS reads student ID cards, which can be anywhere on a student’s body, and matches the information on the card with information in its system. The card technology, explains View Systems President Barry Feldman, provides students’ backgrounds and photos, “so we know what’s coming up” and can be extra vigilant in doing SecureScan checks on individuals with a history of troublemaking.

Mogul Creates Tough Handhelds to Seek, Find Hidden Danger

Jeff Cady hopes his customers never have to brave temperature extremes or use his company’s metal detection wands for protection. If they do, the president of Mogul Co. LLC says his company’s tools are up for the job.

Seeker Plus

The company sells handheld metal detectors that Cady describes as “military grade.” He says that means the wands can take “the abuse of being deployed worldwide for military, correctional use” or other demanding environs. “It’s not a product that just works some of the time, it needs to work all the time,” says Cady, who notes the products can operate in a temperature range from 150 degrees Fahrenheit to 40 degrees below zero.

“If you have a vehicle in Arizona, or anywhere it gets extremely hot, or in a guard booth, it gets very hot and it needs to work right away,” says Cady. “It doesn’t have time to acclimate.”

Mogul’s Seeker Plus is an average-sized wand that delivers 360-degree detection. That makes it more user friendly that the older-style paddles or one-sided wands, which Cady says “you have to be a contortionist to be able to use.” Seeker Plus, which came out last March, sells for $169.

Cady says Seeker Plus is the most durable product on the market, explaining it can be dropped from one meter high without incurring damage.

That’s because its components are designed to withstand impact and because it’s encased in a one-piece unit. Many competing metal detection wands, he says, are two pieces so “you drop it and it opens up like a BLT.”

And while Cady wouldn’t endorse the use of Mogul’s wands as weapons, he says they can stand up to the task, if necessary. “In Las Vegas, we had it used at some casinos, and they had to use it sometimes to defend themselves,” he says. “It’s not meant for that, but it can take a hell of beating, and it can still work.”

The company also sells a cell phone-size metal detector called Seeker One, a $79 unit introduced about a year ago. Seeker One easily can be concealed in the palm of a person’s hand or even within a newspaper, so it can check people for weapons without alerting them that the check is happening, says Cady. To keep it quiet, the device has a vibrate mode, rather than an alarm, to indicate hidden weapons.

This product has a wide variety of applications, Cady says. A public safety organization policing a Ku Klux Klan gathering in Alabama bought a dozen of the devices. It also can be useful in gatherings involving dignitaries;

correctional facilities use it to check individuals in the prison yards and at bed checks (it has an LED light so users can operate it in the dark); some airlines have these devices on board; and public venues such as nightclubs, train stations and trade shows, may use private security that carry the devices, says Cady. “I had some people, before they did a drug bust, they worked the guy in the room” with the Seeker One to see if he was carrying a weapon, Cady says.

Some private corporations are even using the device. “One company was going to fire a high-level employee, and before he came in the room they were going to check his jacket,” says Cady, explaining the employee was known as a high-strung gun enthusiast. “If he wouldn’t give it to them, they were going to check him with this.”

Cady says security personnel using Seeker One should be 1- to 2- inches from the person they are scanning. At that range, he says, the product delivers “pinpoint accuracy.”

Cady says Mogul has been very successful with its handhelds and now looking to expand into the walk-through metal detection market. The company plans to introduce products in this new area in the next several months, he says.

– By Paula Bernier