1–5 Jun 2026
Europe/Budapest timezone

Classifying low-Z materials with muon scattering tomography for border security

3 Jun 2026, 14:30
15m
Talk Muon Imaging for Safety, Security, and Health Muon Imaging for Safety, Security, and Health

Speaker

Dr Nicholas Reed (Imperial College London)

Description

With the rise of online shopping and e-commerce platforms, the volume of packages passing through EU shipping centres has more than doubled, requiring new techniques and technologies to help prevent smuggling. CosmoPort is a Horizon-EU funded project aimed to deploy muon scattering tomography in EU postal centres, targeting illicit goods such as drugs, tobacco, and firearms. Using a prototype scanner system developed by GScan OÜ, a material classification exercise was conducted to assess the feasibility of discriminating different low-Z materials, based on machine learning. Using training data consisting of 30 minute measurements of 6cm side-length cubes of various low-Z materials, a classification accuracy of greater than 98% was achieved with this prototype system. This presentation will discuss the results of this exercise, the application of machine learning techniques to the low-Z problem, and ongoing developments in reliable material identification.

Authors

Egils Avots (GScan OÜ) Kaarel Tark (GScan OÜ) Madis Kiisk (GScan OÜ) Märt Mägi (GScan OÜ) Dr Nicholas Reed (Imperial College London) Nicholas Wardle (Imperial College London) Vitali Paštšuk (GScan OÜ)

Presentation materials

There are no materials yet.