X-rays could soon be used to catch smugglers, says Heimann Systems of
Wiesbaden, Germany. The company wants to fit a lorry with X-ray equipment to
help spot the 70 per cent of the goods transported on lorries that it claims are
falsely declared.
It has been impractical to use X-rays on large vehicles because the high
power equipment is too bulky to move round the whole truck. The German solution
(2 305 097) builds the X-ray into a lorry which is driven slowly past the
suspect load. A gantry extends from the detector lorry to position an X-ray
sensor on the suspect truck’s far side.
