 Jonathan Player for
The New York Times British scientists are developing a
commercial airline seat lined with sensors that
would measure body movements, offering clues on
everything from nervous terrorists to passengers
in danger of thrombosis.
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It is an airline passenger seat studded with hidden sensors and linked to a computerized monitor screen that cabin staff can read for clues about their passengers.
The airplane lifts off and you sit back. You wriggle for comfort and someone records this movement. You sleep and that, too, is noted. You become restless, fidgety, with rapid breathing — a fear of flying or a terrorist bracing to attack? Someone else detects those wrigglings, too.
Is the passenger in danger of developing deep-vein thrombosis? Is the passenger unusually, perhaps suspiciously, restless? The seat could provide an answer. Call it Big Brother — à la George Orwell — meets Q — à la James Bond.
In the annals of science, it is generally held that while Britons may be good at inventing things — early computer systems, say, or radar — Americans have an edge in taking hold of the technology to make big business of it — I.B.M., for instance.
"It's generally true that the United Kingdom has a fantastic reputation worldwide for inventing things," said David Anderson, a top executive and physicist at the facility here, while "the culture in other places has been very much in building businesses." One of the things he and his colleagues want to do is "change that perception."
The secluded facility here is run by a company called QinetiQ — one-third owned since last December by American investors and two-thirds by the British Ministry of Defense — and is one of a series of company installations employing some 10,000 people, 8,000 of them scientists, including 1,000 Ph.D's.
 The New York
Times QinetiQ's plant in
Farnborough is a former military facility.
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It was once devoted exclusively to secret military research. But, these days, thousands of scientists are working on contraptions for civilian use, ranging from the "smart seat" to an adaptation of the satellite navigation technology used in cruise missiles to probe into the most secret hiding places — a device as handy for police officers seeking errant parolees as for parents keeping tabs on children.
From a business point of view the company is something of a novelty because it has leapt the divide between secret government projects and supposedly more open private business, seeking to use expertise garnered from military research to create commercial products.
With a 33.8 percent, $320 million stake held by the United States-based Carlyle Group of private investors — whose board members including former President George H.W. Bush and ex-Prime Minister John Major of Britain — it also seems to embody that complex of military and political mystery that antiwar protesters love to hate. But the civilian innovations are apparently more benign.
Military experience in eavesdropping on jumbled signals, for instance, has enabled scientists to produce a sophisticated scanning device to detect fetal heartbeats. Warhead technology, Mr. Anderson said, enabled it to come up with a way of using explosives in the oil industry to get oil out of wells more efficiently.
The installation, formerly known as the Defense Evaluation and Research Agency, has also adapted surveillance technology used by military special forces for the purposes of metal detection at airports and to detect would-be illegal immigrants aboard trucks in the Channel tunnel from France to Britain.
Then there is the smart seat, the invention of the moment that has drawn the most attention.
Essentially, Michael Burns said, a company director, the seat emerged as part of an effort to enhance airplane passenger cabins with such innovations as miniature speakers that spread sound through the panels that form the cabin lining.
The seat, he said, sitting in a mockup of one, is equipped with movement sensors to detect whether a passenger is still for a long period, and may therefore be at risk of developing deep-vein thrombosis, or extraordinarily fidgety, as a person might be who is on the verge of unpredictable behavior — air rage or terrorism, say.
In the future, the sensors could include devices to detect body temperature, breathing and stress levels. "It can't differentiate whether this is caused by fear of flying or a terrorist" readying an attack, Mr. Burns said. "But it can detect that certain passengers are experiencing stress," and a control panel can show which passengers have left their seat belts unfastened.
The seat, he said, could be used in future to dim the lights or switch off the movie automatically when a passenger is shown to be sleeping. Additionally, he said, airlines are always interested in knowing "where's the next technology, where's the next trick," to attract new customers.
Deep in these English woods, those tricks seem to be taking form.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company