Are Wii Balance Boards the Future of Airport Security?

Actors walked into a room, where the various sensors measured their responses to a series of questions from a screener. The questions included, “Is this the month of September?” and “Do you plan to detonate an explosive?” Their responses were noted on individual graphs that indicated whether their physiological cues fell within normal ranges.

It’s taken about $20 million to develop the technology. All but one of the sensors is commercially available.

One is a thermal imaging device that measures the temperature of a face. A screener would look for temperature changes — a possible stress response — as a person is asked questions.

Another device, an eye tracker, follows a person’s gaze, checks the amount of blinking and measures pupil dilation.

Two of the machines track heart and respiratory rates. They also measure the interval between heartbeats and how deeply one inhales.

And there is an improvised fidgeting monitor. Researchers took a Wii balance board — a device people stand on to interact with certain Nintendo Wii video games — and altered it to show how someone’s weight shifts. Studies are now under way to determine whether there is a level of fidgeting that would suggest the need for secondary screening.

A checkpoint screener would not look at the results individually, but would consider them together when deciding whether someone should be sent for questioning, Burns said.

And a screener wouldn’t be targeting just people with elevated levels.

“We’re going to look for the elevation, but we’re also going to look for the absence of signals, which is just as indicative of being something that has to be resolved,” Burns said.

FAST researchers are encouraged by the results so far. One of the researchers, Daniel Martin, says as each succeeding study becomes more real, the program is “doing significantly better than chance.”

Critics say that is not good enough.

[CNN]

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