FEATURE ARTICLE

March 2005

Vendors Vie for Chem-Bio Defense Dollars

by Harold Kennedy

A number of new technologies were on display in Tampa, Fla., at an industry conference hosted by the U.S. Special Operations Command. Here is a sampling:

The Hawk Long-Range Chemical Detector—made by Bruker Daltonics, of Billerica, Mass.—can detect chemicals up to five kilometers away, said applications chemist Richard Crowley. The Hawk’s sensor has a passive infrared detector, which identifies the characteristic “fingerprint” signatures of chemical agents. It can monitor all known chemical-weapon agents and toxic industrial chemicals.

The Hawk can be installed as a stand-alone device or placed in a ground vehicle, aircraft or ship. It also can be mounted on a tripod for use in the field, Crowley said.

Reactive Skin Decontamination Lotion—a product of O’Dell Engineering Ltd., of Puslinch, Ontario—will remove and destroy military chemical agents on contact, said the firm’s president, Philip C. O’Dell.

The lotion comes in individual-use pouches. It is a liquid skin decontaminant that breaks down chemical agents such as sarin or VX in seconds, leaving a non-toxic liquid that can be washed away with water, O’Dell said.

The lotion is NATO approved and is fielded with the armed forces of Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands and Australia. The Food and Drug Administration approved the lotion’s use within the United States, and O’Dell has a contract with the Defense Department to provide it to first responders.

The Draeger Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus-Extended Duration is a modular combination of a standard SCBA and a powered air-purifying respirator, explained John W. Kenneweg, business development manager of Draeger Safety Inc., of Emmitsburg, Md.

Standard SCBAs provide only 60 minutes of breathing time, Kenneweg said. The SCBA-E “could allow first responders to work for hours” in contaminated environments, he said.

Draeger has been working with the U.S. Army since 2002 to develop the SCBA-E. Final testing with live agents currently is underway at the Army’s Research, Development and Evaluation Command, Kenneweg said.

An IQbot is an unmanned, tracked vehicle designed for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear reconnaissance, said Bob C. Kibler, a marketing director for Inficon, in East Syracuse, N.Y. IQbot is a joint venture between Inficon and Qinetiq, formerly the united Kingdom’s Defence Evaluation and Research Agency.

IQbot can be outfitted with a full range of sensors, cameras and electronic countermeasures, Kibler said. The vehicle is designed to operate in a contaminated environment. Payloads are secured within a hermetically sealed bay inside the vehicle.

The vehicle can be operated in urban and rural terrain, even on the battlefield, Kibler said. It can climb stairs and navigate its way around other obstacles. It is also submersible.

IQbot is capable of speeds up to 25 kph on paved roads and 10 kph on rough terrain. It is small, about four feet long and less than two feet tall, enabling it to go places too tight for larger vehicles, Kibler said.

The Turbofogger, a joint venture between United Defense’s Armament Systems Division and German-based OWR AG, is a lightweight, handheld decontamination unit, explained Paul Erickson, from OWR’s U.S. facility in Jacksonville, Fla. “The Turbofogger is an electrically operated pneumatic cold fogger,” he said. It atomizes a chemical and biological decontamination agent known as GD-5 into a fine aerosol that can used to cleanse personal equipment, heavy equipment and the interior or exterior of ground vehicles, aircraft or vessels. In emergencies, it also can decontaminate. The Turbofogger weighs 30 pounds and comes with a four-point shoulder harness. It has been fielded in Iraq and Afghanistan, Erickson said.

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