Laser Imaging Video Camera Sees through Fire, Fog, Smoke NASA Technology really be put together for a perimeter security system on out long before the device was feasible or affordable for the border, at a factory or a nuclear power plant, or on a use in firefighting, so Billmers applied for a NASA Small In November 2012, Bob Foraker was strolling military installation.” Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract through through the NASA Technology Days expo in He made a proposition to enter into a collaborative Langley Research Center in 2006 and was awarded Phase Cleveland, Ohio. He was there to look for technology agreement with the inventor, Richard Billmers, whereby I and II contracts. that might apply to the line of retrofitted hybrid electric Foraker would round up investors, find a chief financial “When we saw it, we became very excited about it for vans he helped to pioneer, but he stumbled on something officer, and help to develop a business model for what our applications,” says Ivan Clark, senior research scien- he’d never seen before: a video camera capable of seeing would become Canton Ohio-based Laser Imaging tist at Langley’s Electromagnetics and Sensors branch and through flames, fog, dust, and virtually any other obscur- ant, even at night. through Obscurants (LITO) Technologies Inc. lead for the Lidar and Electro-Optics element of NASA’s Aviation Safety Program. Billmers had approached Owner of an international business incubator, entre- Security wasn’t the original intent of the technology, NASA with a working “fire lidar,” as he called it at the preneur, and merchant banker with interests in real which ultimately could find use in a number of fields. time (lidar being a common portmanteau of “light” and estate, software and technology development, energy, Billmers had conceived of it a decade prior as a tool that “radar”), capable of seeing through a blaze. Since it was consulting, and a variety of other areas, Foraker happened would allow firefighters and other first responders to see also capable of penetrating almost any other obscurant, to have once worked on a perimeter security project in through smoke and flames, and he had developed the Clark saw potential for the device to increase visibility for Saudi Arabia. “I thought, wow,” he recalls, “this could capability working with the Navy. However, funding ran aircraft under adverse conditions. Much of NASA’s aviation efforts over the last Perimeter security for facilities decade have been in support of the Federal Aviation such as nuclear power plants, Administration’s (FAA) endeavor to update air traffic which are often located on foggy lakes, is one possible application control, accommodating more flights while also increas- for Laser Imaging through ing safety, Clark says. The FAA refers to this technological Obscurants (LITO) technology. push as the Next Generation Air Transportation System, The prototype is currently being demonstrated for perimeter or NextGen. security at NASA’s Glenn An example of the need for this update can be found at Research Center. San Francisco International Airport, where frequent fog causes backups that can mean planes end up grounded all over the country, waiting to fly into San Francisco, Clark says. “If you can see the other aircraft, you can get more aircraft in and out of an airport in a given time.” This is the kind of issue Clark has been working on, as his job in support of NextGen has been to address atmospheric hazards to aviation. It’s also just the sort of problem Billmers’ invention could solve, along with other visibility issues pilots face. The device works by sending out fast pulses of near- infrared laser light and then opening the aperture, or gate, just in time to catch them after they’ve reflected off the target object, Billmers explains. 68 Public Safety Spinoff 2015 Light travels at one foot per nanosecond, so the which isn’t much compared to the concentrated laser just been developing the hardware, making sure every- camera might send out a 10-nanosecond pulse of light light reflected from the object behind it. “I’ve time-gated thing works, getting all the timings right,” he says, adding and then wait about 50 nanoseconds to open the gate. In out the fire, because there’s almost no light from it in that that he’s also run extensive tests to see what surfaces the interval, the light has passed through the obscurant, short window,” Billmers says. reflect better under various conditions. A third SBIR with which reflects and dissipates some of it, then bounced Billmers concedes that there are other ways to look Langley funded further testing into 2012. Billmers now off of whatever happens to be around 25 feet away, and through obscurants. A thermal imager, for example, can holds several patents on the technology. returned to the camera. see through smoke if it’s cold, but it doesn’t do well with As the fledgling company came together, Foraker “When I turn the camera on, all that near-term fog because heat is absorbed by water. A thermal imager suggested commercializing the device for a ground reflected light is gone,” Billmers says. “I can get rid of the also cannot penetrate glass. application and using the income to continue developing near-term scattering, so I’m not blinded.” The laser light “There is no other system out there that can see the technology until it could be made small enough also scatters less than normal white light. through a flame sheet,” he says. for use on airplanes. Billmers had already hit on the By adjusting the time that the gate waits to open, “Basically, this is a strobe video camera,” Clark says. possibility of perimeter security after he was able to spot Billmers can train the camera on objects at different Not only did the device Billmers had built with the Navy workers through dense fog while testing the camera on an distances, and it is capable of reaching up to a couple present an elegant solution to a difficult problem, but it Army base. of miles. had already been demonstrated to be effective, he says. Foraker also had an idea for a proving ground for the A closer object’s shadow can also make it identifiable, technology—NASA’s Glenn Research Center, which is Technology Transfer he explains. Something near the camera would show not far from his home, and with whom he had worked up as a silhouette against light reflected from objects However, while the idea was relatively simple, the on a Space Act Agreement 10 years prior. “It also ended farther away. hardware to make it work was a technological challenge. up at Glenn because there was a location there that The camera can see through fire because it only Under the first two SBIRs with Langley, Billmers devel- they could not securitize, and we were able to solve it,” catches a few nanoseconds’ worth of light from the blaze, oped and refined his current prototype. “A lot of it has Foraker says. NASA’s Langley Research Center entered into three SBIR agreements with LITO Technologies, recognizing the technology’s potential to enhance visibility for pilots under adverse conditions. The company hopes to market the technology for ground applications and use revenues to advance it enough for use on aircraft. Spinoff 2015 Public Safety 69 “There other system is no out that see through there can a flame sheet.” — Richard Billmers, LITO Technologies The LITO technology was originally Navy conceived of as a “fire lidar” capable US of seeing through flames. The he technology was proven effective early of t on, and the company still envisions a esy device that would prevent firefighters ourt c and other first responders from being e g a blinded by smoke and flames. m I 70 Public Safety Spinoff 2015 Starting from the left, three pictures of a pair of church towers, all taken at 500 meters, demonstrate the LITO technology. Image 1 is a pair of church towers, as seen with regular, visible light. Image 2 is those same towers barely discernable through rain and drizzle by a regular camera. Image three is of the towers as seen with the LITO device through the same rain and drizzle. In late 2013, less than a year after the encounter at Even as the company demonstrates the invention 600 meters. “Then it can say, ‘Please stop what you’re NASA Technology Days, LITO Technologies had a at Glenn, Foraker says LITO Technologies has already doing,’ or, ‘We can see you,’ or whatever,” he says. Space Act Agreement with Glenn and another with received some interest from potential clients and is ready Because low visibility is not always an issue, he says, Langley allowing the company to use the hardware— to take orders. Each system will have to be customized LITO has to be considered a supplement to a system that which still belongs to Langley—and incorporate it into depending on the distance to the perimeter and other includes other infrared and regular cameras. the center’s security system. factors. Since he was first introduced to Billmers’ early “fire lidar,” Clark says, he has envisioned applications not only The camera at Glenn is triggered by a tripwire-like Benefits in perimeter security and enhancing safety and efficiency laser and automatically turns to the place where the Billmers still looks to the day when the technology in aviation but also in shipping, where vessels have to perimeter was breached, Foraker says, adding that another will help firefighters blinded by smoke and flames in the make their way in and out of foggy harbors, and trucking, option would be to put it on a track for added mobility. Santa Ana winds, and he doesn’t think that time will be where it could prevent accidents and pileups in storms Neither the triggering laser nor the laser light from the far off. “We think we used the SBIR for exactly what it’s and fog. camera is visible to the human eye. intended for, which is getting this thing commercially “I think there’s a lot of commercial capability, and I Joe Shaw, director of venture and partnerships at ready,” he says. “We now know how to build a system think they’re right on the hairy edge of being able to do Glenn, who helped set up the expo where Billmers we can sell for perimeter security or for first responders.” it,” he says, adding that he thinks the demonstration at and Foraker met and who also guided the Space Act Foraker sees the perimeter security systems being Glenn is putting the company over the top and into the Agreement with Glenn, said he was pleased that the part- useful in sandstorms at desert outposts, at nuclear power realm of commercial viability. “It’s the kind of thing that nership was proving fruitful. “Based on our interactions plants that are often on foggy lakes, on the US border, can do NASA proud.” v with LITO and some of their early technology demon- and at other facilities. LITO technology could also find strations through the SBIR, we are very excited about the an application in accident prevention on police and emer- possibilities for this,” Shaw says. gency vehicles, he says. “We’re taking an aviation-needs SBIR with NASA Jared Sullivan, who Foraker brought on as LITO’s Langley and turning it to a ground application at NASA chief financial officer, says the company is also partner- Glenn,” Foraker says, adding that he still intends to even- ing with an acoustics company to incorporate “localized tually refine the technology for use in aviation, as well as a acoustics” into the system, capable of pinpointing a sound host of other applications. between a person’s ears, in this case at distances of up to Spinoff 2015 Public Safety 71