Man-Portable LIFDAR System for the Remote Detection of Clandestine Laboratories

The proliferation of clandestine laboratories for illegal drug manufacturing has escalated throughout the years. National total of methamphetamine laboratories seizures has grown from 43 in 1973 to a 2025 in 1999. Last year it registered an increment of24% compared to the previous year. These statistics only reflects the number of sites that were detected and seized. It is recognized, however, that many more labs are operating than those that are discovered. Detection of clandestine labs isaccomplished by a number of intelligence gathering procedures, including reporting of activity by suspecting neighbors. There is a need to insert more advanced techniques to acquire evidence of illegal drug manufacturing activities at a suspectedlocation. The proposed effort will begin with the selection of volatile compounds that will be considered the targets of interest (TOIs) for the duration of the project. An analysis of the fluorescence properties of these TOIs will be performed using 266nm excitation. A system architecture and performance model for a laser-induced fluorescence LIDAR (LIFDAR) system will be defined. The Phase I effort will end with the development of a preliminary design for this system. Phase II will cover theproduction of a fieldable system for customer evaluation.The man-portable LIFDAR to be developed under the proposed SBIR program has significant potential for application in military sensing, environmental remediation and biological agent detection. Inaddition, a market exists for advanced sensors, primarily for airborne biological agent detection. The cost of the proposed system should be low enough in production that sensors based on this technology could be acquired by virtually every single lawenforcement unit dedicated to the detection and seizure of clandestine laboratories. We have estimated potential business in excess of >$130 M based on the proposed technology. Not all of this would be realized by a single company, but the business andpotential saving clearly justifies investment in this technology by government and industry.