| Biral’s unique ASAS
Technology is the platform for a family of biodetection sensor products and has been used
for nearly ten years by the British Armed forces in battlefield detection systems. Biral
devices have also been adopted in civil defence systems. Developed for real-time biodetection and using optoelectronic
techniques, ASAS Technology was originally an invention from the University of
Hertfordshire and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratories (UK MoD). Biral
then developed the ideas into commercial products, where the technology was adopted in the
British Armed Forces PBDS and IBDS biodetection systems.
Biral’s ASAS sensors (Aerosol
Size And Shape) use a technique of
laser light scattering originally developed by the University of Hertfordshire and UK
MoD’s Defence Science and Research Laboratories (Dstl).
Fundamentally, ASAS Technology samples the ambient
air and performs a physical characterisation of the aerosol particles in terms of their
size, shape and concentration. Since most particles, either naturally occurring or
manmade, are not perfect spheres, shape is an important means of classifying particles
Representing particle population data as a 3D surface in
size-shape-concentration space gives a very effective aerosol signature for a particular
location.
With an understanding of insignificant sources of particles
and the natural fluctuations for the background’s characteristics, the system looks
for significant systematic changes in aerosol characteristics, indicating an "aerosol
dispersal event".
ASAS Technology has already proven itself
effective over many UK MoD trials. Perhaps most notably it has been demonstrated to
distinguish a threat from fuel oils - the major cause of false alarms for
fluorescence-only sensor technologies.
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