US military face recognition system can work from 1km away

WASHINGTON: The US military is developing a portable face-recognition device capable of identifying individuals from a kilometre away.

The Advanced Tactical Facial Recognition at a Distance Technology project is being carried out for US Special Operations Command (SOCOM). It commenced in 2016, and a working prototype was demonstrated in December 2019, paving the way for a production version. SOCOM says the research is ongoing, but declined to comment further, reported foreign media on Tuesday.

Initially designed for hand-held use, the technology could also be used from drones.

To develop and demonstrate innovative advanced tactical facial recognition technologies at ranges of 650 meters to 1 kilometer to enhance tactical situation awareness and support positive identification of persons of interest. The tactical facial recognition technologies need to be capable of being reduced to man-portable size, weight, and power (SWAP) requirements. While this effort is focused on ground tactical applications, the expandability to airborne Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) applications is desired.

The US SOCOM requires the capability to identify hostile persons with a high degree of accuracy in a short period of time from communications disadvantaged locations. US SOCOM has a requirement for man-portable tactical facial recognition at a distance up to 1 kilometer. Emerging advanced facial recognition algorithms are demonstrating improved performance against non-ideal facial images, with further technology development ongoing for more robust performance with unconstrained facial images (examples include: occlusion, facial hair, bandana, hijab), face capture and extraction, and streaming video processing.

Tactical facial recognition at long range present additional technical challenges requiring development and integration of multiple diverse technologies, including optical systems (for example: optical resolution, focus, aberrations), imaging sensors (for example: number of pixels, noise), atmospheric effects correction, super-resolution enhancement, motion/jitter stabilisation/compensation, processing power, automated and user-friendly controls and display (for example: tablet, smartphone), and man-portability (SWAP, ruggedness).

The objective of this technology pursuit is to conduct a thorough technology feasibility study, including an analysis of the critical technical factors, constraints, and relationships affecting long-range facial recognition performance, with a top-level integrated system design. The study should identify/demonstrate the critical prototype technologies and scalability needed to achieve a man-portable SWAP form factor.