Automated Detection of Threat Objects Using Adapted Implicit Shape Model

Baggage inspection using X-ray screening is a priority task that reduces the risk of crime and terrorist attacks. Manual detection of threat items is tedious because very few bags actually contain threat items and the process requires a high degree of concentration. An automated solution would be a welcome development in this field. We propose a methodology for automatic detection of threat objects using single X-ray images. Our approach is an adaptation of a methodology originally created for recognizing objects in photographs based on implicit shape models. Our detection method uses a visual vocabulary and an occurrence structure generated from a training dataset that contains representative X-ray images of the threat object to be detected. Our method can be applied to single views of grayscale X-ray images obtained using a single energy acquisition system. We tested the effectiveness of our method for the detection of three different threat objects: 1) razor blades; 2) shuriken (ninja stars); and 3) handguns. The testing dataset for each threat object consisted of 200 X-ray images of bags. The true positive and false positive rates (TPR and FPR) are: (0.99 and 0.02) for razor blades, (0.97 and 0.06) for shuriken, and (0.89 and 0.18) for handguns. If other representative training datasets were utilized, we believe that our methodology could aid in the detection of other kinds of threat objects.