More LOCH news...project ahead of schedule, thoughts?
Tuesday June 8, 12:01 am Eastern Time Company Press Release
Loch's Landmine Task Force Expects to Beat Timeline
AUSTIN, Texas, June 8 /PRNewswire/ -- ELF, perhaps the newest high-tech hope for detection and elimination of landmines, is not only ''on track'' but may even be delivered ahead of schedule, according to Dr. Henry Blair, project manager for Chemical Detection Technologies, Inc. (ChemTech), subsidiary of Loch Harris, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: LOCH - news).
Blair gave his first update since returning from Croatia in a conference call last night to officers of ChemTech and Loch Harris, reporting that recent engineering breakthroughs may have cut ''as much as a month'' off the timeline for delivery of a working prototype for field tests.
On a trip to Croatia last month, Blair and Rodney Boone, CEO of ChemTech and Loch Harris, promised Croatian authorities a working prototype for tests in their live mine fields by February 1. ''Based on a recent breakthrough, I now think we can beat that by up to 30 days,'' said Blair, with optimism uncharacteristic of his usual scientific reserve.
''As we progress with the ELF prototype,'' he said, ''our confidence increases that the conceptual design and modeling is accurate. We expect ELF to perform as specified. System weight, effective range, system manageability and signal discrimination capabilities, all critical to the mission of ELF, are currently on track.''
''Here at the Tucson-based ChemTech laboratories,'' said Blair, ''as the prototype system engineering nears completion and component deliveries begin, the team's excitement is increasing.''
''ELF, which stands for 'Eliminate Landmines Forever,' is designed to provide a forward looking, stand-off mechanism for detection and location of anti-personnel (AP), anti-tank (AT) landmines and booby traps,'' Blair said. ''The system provides either heads-up location and range, or GPS-based coordinate data.''
''The system employs X-ray energy to excite components of explosive molecules and uses the returned excited energy to identify and locate the source of the return energy. ChemTech's proprietary sensor/detector system isolates the very weak return signal. Sophisticated neural net-based software performs the identification and discrimination tasks,'' he said.
''ELF provides a new approach to this extremely important objective,'' according to Blair. ''In addition to the well understood issue of humanitarian demining, ELF's light weight, portability, and very fast signal integration features would appear to have major military implications.''
''That combination of humanitarian needs and potential military applications adds up to a significant and long-term financial impact on the future of Loch Harris and ChemTech, once ELF is proven in the field,'' said Boone.
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