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Lasers And Their Use in Stand-Off Detection of Chemical Warfare Agents

INTERNATIONAL VISEGRAD FUND     Logo of the Conference

International Conference On Laser Technologies Usable In Effort Against World Terrorism
Stara Lesna, High Tatras, Slovakia, May 27-29, 2003

                 

Mission of the Conference

During the last period, nations of the world have been facing international terrorism. The potential use of toxic chemical agents and warfare agents poses serious threat not only during military clashes, but also among civilians. Relatively easy access to various toxic chemical agents makes the situation even more serious. For that reason, it is necessary to pay increased attention to the development of detection systems that are able to reveal this sort of danger in advance and reliably. In such a situation it is impossible for Visegrad countries to stay apart and moreover, three of them are new members of North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the fourth is a hot membership candidate.

It shouldn't be forgotten that major deficiency during the Operation Desert Storm was the inability of allied forces to effectively detect and identify chemical warfare agents. Historically known fact is that only Czechoslovak chemical corps detected chemical warfare agent contaminations in the area. This fact was a major stimulation for onward development of the DIAL system designated for remote chemical warfare agent detection. The DIAL system development was realized in the Czechoslovak research and development facilities. After the Czechoslovak Federal Republic was divided, the DIAL development continued and achieved great progress in VTU Liptovsky Mikulas with participation of company Metrodat. The DIAL functional prototypes were produced there and the development was finished after successful military field tests.

Similarly, as the present fight against world terrorism is no more individual matter of particular countries, the above-mentioned achieved results enable the same progress on field of multilateral scientific and technological cooperation among countries.

The attention that is currently paid by the allied forces in operation Iraqi Freedom to the theme of stand-off detection of chemical warfare agents is the best proof of its importance. The DD-CWA detector developed in Military Technical Institute in Liptovsky Mikulas is among the most presented parts of armament prepared for fight against Saddam Hussein's regime.

Therefore, the conference organizers' chief effort is to create favorable conditions for both maximum effectiveness and time reduction as far as the development of effective detection tools is concerned. It is very important for elimination of possibilities of potential terrorists. The objective can be reached by forming of a permanent workshop that would enable mutual information and experience exchange among leading experts of research organizations and private companies not only in the Visegrad countries.

Main goals of the conference:

  • Assignment of the tasks
  • Analysis of present state in the field of toxic agents detection
  • Forming of informal interdisciplinary and multinational scientific teams
  • Assembly of knowledge database

Expected benefits:

  • Mutual introduction of members of scientific teams
  • Time reduction of development stages
  • Eliminating of unnecessary parallelism
  • Exchange of scientific information
  • Instant application of new knowledge in the field