DOE AWARDS IOS $750K PHASE II CONTRACT.

Intelligent Optical Systems Inc. (IOS), a privately held R&D company specializing in the design and development of proprietary optical communications, monitoring and signal processing technologies, has announced that it has received a $750,000 contract from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to continue its development of a "smart" sensor system for toxic waste monitoring.

Reuben Sandler, president and chief executive officer of IOS, said, "In phase one of this project, we demonstrated the ability of the smart spectral analysis approach to detect the target contaminants tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and trichlorethylene (TCE) in isolation and in real-world spectra taken from a mixture of materials obtained from a typical remediation site.

"The second phase of our work focuses on the development of an intelligent, unmanned, cost-effective technology for the real-time characterization and quantitative analysis of hazardous chemicals in a variety of conditions.

"This project will provide the platform for an entirely new class of inexpensive, mass-market tools for increased public safety and more responsible industrial processes."

Noting that available hazardous waste monitoring technologies are barely adequate or are completely unacceptable, due to their high costs, long turn-around times and need for on-site experts to analyze the results, Sandler explained that many toxic waste locations go untested. The methods presently used for assessing contamination in soil, groundwater and other environments include transporting samples off-site to a laboratory for analysis and installing a laboratory- grade Raman spectrometer or other expensive detection instrument on-site. In most cases, technicians are needed to obtain the samples, and a trained expert is needed to view the spectra from each sample to determine the extent and type of contamination they reveal.

"IOS's automated intelligent software-based technology will significantly augment the capabilities of existing spectrometers and will greatly reduce or totally eliminate many of their most significant limitations. The IOS smart spectral recognition technology will permit many more measurements to be taken in a given amount of time, at much lower cost, and with greater accuracy than previously possible.

"Specifically, our system, which uses advanced signal processing, will enable accurate quantitative assessments of situations where the signal to noise ratio is substantially less than 1:1. This method will make assessments much faster than would be possible for a human (even assessments for noise-free signals) and will completely eliminate the need for the on-site presence of scientific experts," Sandler said.

He added that because the new smart technology is contained in software modules, it will be easy for the end-user to reprogram the unit to respond to a different set of target contaminants.

"In addition to government agencies and services, there is a tremendous commercial market for chemical monitoring and characterization services and equipment worldwide. According to the Environmental Business Journal, the global market for characterization and process monitoring equipment is $3 billion and is increasing every year. For example, in the United States, there are 130,000 gasoline stations, each contaminating the soil and damaging the environment. And, in eastern Germany, where coal has been used as an energy source for years, coal ashes are currently a source of soil and water contamination," Sandler said.

Other potential commercial applications for the smart sensor technology include controlling jet fuel quality, monitoring the condition of turbine oil, and controlling and monitoring processes in industries such as utilities, refining, lubricant blending, railroads and trucking.

"This project is an excellent example of our strategy to commercialize IOS's portfolio of intellectual property through partnerships, joint ventures and other affiliations. The proprietary optical communications, monitoring and signal processing technologies we have developed over the past decade also have exciting applications in medical diagnostics, fiber optic communications, aerospace and other industries with enormous growth potential," Sandler said.

Intelligent Optical Systems Inc. (www.intopsys.com) is a privately held R&D company based in Torrance that specializes in the design and development of proprietary optical communications, monitoring and signal processing technologies.