Explosives Detection Canine Program

Detection Canine Team working the crowd at a basketball arena Canines have been used by law enforcement agencies for decades to protect the Homeland. The mission of the Explosives Detection Canine Program is to provide the Homeland Security Enterprise (HSE) with the tools, techniques, and knowledge to better understand, train, and utilize the explosives detection canine. EXD is working with DHS partners, including the Transportation Security Administration, other federal agencies, and state and local law enforcement, to:

Provide a central focal point for DHS canine research and development
Promote intra-Department and interagency coordination to drive the development of technologies with broad application
Provide a specific focus on the Person Borne Improvised Explosive Device (PBIED) detection canine

Program Capabilities:

State of the Art Lab Analysis
Independent/Expert T&E Assessment
HSE Community Outreach
Cross Discipline Odor Discrimination
Interagency Partnerships

The program has three specific focus areas:

Developing low-cost, non-hazardous training aids that can be used to improve and test canine ability to detect new threats
Providing independent operational test and evaluation capability for detection canines; discovering canine strengths and weaknesses by performing in-field assessments; and using a scientifically rigorous approach with statistically significant results to enhance and validate testing methods
Reducing the number of odors used in training while maintaining detection proficiency in order to provide efficiency and cost savings to law enforcement

The DHS S&T PBIED Canine Initiative was started in 2012 in order to understand the strengths and limits of canines specially trained to detect PBIEDs being carried in by people, either on their person or in bags, in mass transit and large crowd event operational environments. This type of parametric study and testing has not previously been done, but is critical to scientifically determine the limits of performance.