Forensics

New Sensor System Helps Tracking ISIS Explosives

A new use for a bomb-detecting technology: identifying the dangerous opioid fentanyl from a distance using a laser beam to protect soldiers and law enforcement officers and help with prosecutions.

Fentanyl — 100 times more potent than morphine — can be dangerous even to touch. Officers are often sickened by fentanyl exposure during busts.

“Farther, faster, safer,” said Ed Dottery, owner of Alakai Defense Systems, describing the advantages of the technology. Dottery said his sensor system is already being used by the US military to protect troops against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria truck bombs.

It works by shooting a laser beam at an object, then reading the change in the beam when it bounces back. Those changes signal whether there are chemicals used to make explosives.