An explosives trace-detection portal machine, also known as a trace portal machine or puffer machine, is a security device that seeks to detect explosives and illegal drugs at airports and other sensitive facilities as a part of airport security screening. The machines are intended as a secondary screening device, used as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, traditional X-ray machines.
The term "trace-detection" refers to the machine's ability to detect extremely small "traces" of these compounds. The exact sensitivities of these machines is not available information, but a mass spectrometer detects compounds on a molecular level and would only be limited by the efficiency of the collection from the air puffed to obtain a sample for analysis. The machines also have a low false alarm rate that can be less than 1%.
Read more about Explosives Trace-detection Portal Machine: Available Models and Technologies, Improvements, Process, Development, Usage
Famous quotes containing the words portal and/or machine:
“Little scavenger away,
touch not the door,
beat not the portal down.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Psychiatric enlightenment has begun to debunk the superstition that to manage a machine you must become a machine, and that to raise masters of the machine you must mechanize the impulses of childhood.”
—Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)