Passport Systems Wins Office of Naval Research Grant to Study Scanning Technologies to Detect Improvised Explosive Devices

Billerica, Mass. — March, 2006 - Passport Systems, Inc., a developer of advanced cargo inspection scanners, announced it received a $0.8 million three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Naval Research (ONR) to study Passport's Nucleear Resonance Fluorescence technology for the detection of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (IED).

About Passport Systems
Passport Systems was founded in December 2002 to develop the next generation of systems for scanning the contents of sea and air cargo containers. Developed at MIT by company co-founder Professor William Bertozzi, nuclear resonance fluorescence (NRF) imaging is a highly accurate technology that automatically and rapidly detects the existence of nuclear devices, radiological or "dirty bombs," explosives, chemical weapons and other contraband. NRF identifies these threats by scanning the constituent chemical elements of the contents of a cargo container, vehicle or suitcase. This technology positively identifies the contents of a container or suitcase without having to open it and does not depend on a human operator attempting to make a visual identification of possible threats. NRF technology has been licensed exclusively to Passport Systems by MIT. Professor William Bertozzi remains a senior professor of physics at MIT, as well as technical advisor to the Passport Systems team.

For further information contact:
Passport Systems
978-263-9900
contact@passportsystems.com