Degradable Taggants

TIAX proposes an effort to address the two primary technical challenges that need to be resolved in order to develop a robust tagging system to enable near-real time change detection for monitoring of specified routes used by US troops in combat zones. The extreme urgency of this need is starkly clear given the situation in Iraq where roadside bombings using Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are the biggest killer of US troops. These tagging systems can ultimately enable: (i) near-real time detection of indications of Improvised Explosive Device (IED) threats, (ii) collection of movement data by examining tracks in a targeted area, and (iii) identification of entities (e.g., people, vehicles) that were once in the area of interest. The Phase I effort will focus on evaluating the feasibility of the proposed technical solution. Our technical approach is especially designed to accelerate the development process and provide on-the-ground solutions expeditiously. This technology can serve a variety of unmet TTL (Tag, Track and Locate) needs, and has a vast number of potential applications in US military, homeland security, and civilian/commercial markets.