TIAX is developing next-generation taggants and sensors to serve a variety of tagging, tracking, locating, and identification (TTLI) applications. Taggants are markers, which are applied overtly or covertly to track, locate, and identify important assets (e.g., personnel or equipment). For the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, TIAX is developing sensor systems for remote monitoring of objects that have been coated with specialized taggants. This will enable tracking of today's unconventional, high-priority targets, such as those related to terrorist networks and chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive threats. Our innovative technical approach is accelerating the sensor development process, while also dramatically reducing the cost.
For the Office of Naval Research, TIAX is developing novel "degradable" optical taggants that are designed to lose their fluorescent intensity over time. That reduction in fluorescence will prevent the targeted area from becoming "polluted" with tags and make it easier to identify the most relevant threats. The taggants being developed will be part of a system that will be used for a variety of TTLI missions including the detection of people, foot traffic, vehicular traffic, and indications of improvised explosive device threats.