This Drug-Sniffing Car Knows Where Your Drugs Are

[neversickanymore]

This Drug-Sniffing Car Knows Where Your Drugs Are
By Greg Walters
May 6, 2016

A chemistry professor at the University of North Texas has invented the world's first drug-sniffing car, a vehicle capable of detecting trace amounts of illicit substances in the air and then pinpointing the exact location of the source on a map.

Dr. Guido Verbeck created the prototype by equipping a silver 2015 Ford Fusion Energi hybrid sedan with an advanced mass spectrometer, and tested his invention by setting up a fake meth lab in a mobile home and emitting drug fumes through the vents.

From a distance of a quarter-mile, the car could locate the source of the fumes within a radius of 15 feet, according to Verbeck.

"When certain types of chemical strains are detected, the computer kicks on and starts calculating where that strain is coming from," he said. "Within a matter of minutes, the location is pinpointed within a 4 percent error."

The device's advanced sensors were initially intended to measure highway pollution, and are expected to have various environmental applications, including keeping tabs on fracking companies pumping unsafe chemicals into the ground. But Verbeck and his collaborators at the East Syracuse-based technology firm Inficon soon realized that the invention could be used to precisely determine the source of any unique chemical profile traveling through the air — including those associated with many types of drugs.

Meth, PCP, and synthetic opiates like fentanyl "are the ones that people are actually manufacturing in large quantities," Verbeck said.

https://news.vice.com/article/this-drug-sniffing-car-knows-where-your-drugs-are

 

[jammin83]

way to ruin an otherwise cool piece of technology. bummer and also kind of disturbing. only a matter or time before every cop car can sniff out a dime bag in your center console from miles away.

 

[neversickanymore]

I have a sneaking suspicion this will end up being an expensive flop.

Coming in through customs they probably already use stuff like this. In those weird hallways with the metal walls with all the little holes would be my guess.

 

[jammin83]

all i know is mechanical noses are bad for everybody.

 

[manboychef]

Couldn't they have used this money to invest in cameras that detected police brutality. I was watching Lockup last night on MSNBC. There was a serial rapist that had committed 22 rapes, and been convicted of three of them. This had been his third trip to prison. He asked that his identity be hidden. He somehow had gotten out twice before and re-offended in one to two weeks each time, and he was up for parole for a third time. The fact that this car exists and they are thinking of using it for law enforcement, while they are obviously failing the victims of this serial rapist is just absurd. Maybe they should make a car that smells creepers.

 

[cj]

Why couldn't he use this technology to smell diseases in people. They already have dogs that can smell cancer in humans. A cancer smeller could be installed in every doctors office. How many lives could be saved through early detection?

I would also like to know more about this simulated meth lab. Was it out in the open? Questions like that. A simulated meth lab is a long way from sniffing out peoples stashes from inside there homes. I am skeptical.