Shoe Bomb Scanner on Trial in Manchester Airport
December 2010
Prof. WQ Yang testing the scanner.
Manchester Airport and the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering are working together to deploy a newly developed prototype shoe scanner for a live trial.
Due to the threat of shoe bombs at airports, passengers are often asked to stop and remove their shoes to be checked by an X-ray machine which can detect metallic objects. However, it is difficult to identify plastic explosives by x-ray.
The sensing and imaging technology that has been developed in the Professor Wuqiang Yang at the University will allow scanning shoes in real-time when passengers are walking through the shoe scanner. This technology will be able to detect dangerous objects such as plastic explosives and ceramic knives hidden in the soles of shoes by generating display images of shoes. The basic principle of the shoe scanner is that different materials have different permittivity.
During the twelve month concept study a robust full scale prototype will be developed and installed for a live trial in Manchester Airport. If proven successful, the real-time shoe scanner will significantly improve airport security by providing a cheap and reliable solution to detect dangerous objects.
