FB pixel

Defense Department wants to perform real-time biometric identification through walls

Defense Department wants to perform real-time biometric identification through walls
 

The U.S. Army is looking for products and technologies that enable soldiers to see through walls, floors and ceilings to positively identify individuals using biometrics and in real time.

It is not the first time that a government agency, domestic or otherwise, has sought ways to pick out people through solid structures, but it might be the most ambitious wish list of capabilities. The Defense Department issued a request for information January 29 that might make Superman blush and a civil libertarian take up arms.

The Army’s vision is to put a tablet in a soldier’s hands that gives them a 360-degree view through dense vegetation, common construction materials and dirt to identify threats, hiding places, animals, obstructions — you name it. At the same time, the Army wants to be able to differentiate between humans and people, and spot objects as deliberately hard to detect as trip wires.

The system behind the tablet must be portable by a single soldier and operate on batteries.

It should operate literally on top of, say, a hidden weapons cache and from “a long standoff range,” according to the notice. The system should be able to be mounted on air and ground drones, as well.

Six years ago, the U.S. Department of Justice tested and evaluated through-the-wall-sensors from three vendors: L-3 Communications (now L3Harris Technologies), Camero-Tech Ltd. (owned by South Korean telco SK Group) and Akela Inc. Both L-3 and Camero-Tech contributed commercial products. Akela showed a prototype.

L3Harris continues to sell the Range-R device it demonstrated to the government. It is a handheld stepped-frequency continuous-wave radar system operating as a Doppler motion detector to discern people through walls. The federal government restricts the export of Range-Rs under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

Camero-Tech today makes radio-frequency devices that see through walls using ultra-wide-band imaging technologies based on micro-power pulse radar to display renderings in three-dimension simulations. As with L3Harris, Camero-Tech’s products are based on technology displayed to the Justice Department.

It is not clear if Akela, whose sparse website pushes related technology, subsequently created a commercial product based on technology it demonstrated. The company makes a software-defined radar-sensor module that boasts a stand-off distance of up to 30 meters.

None of these three vendors specify how fine are the details that can be discerned with their products. None claim to be able to use their devices to positively identify someone behind an obstruction with biometrics.

In 2018, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said they had developed a neural network capable of using WiFi radio signals to estimate human poses through walls. The result is low-fidelity bubble images and stick figures. It is possible that gait recognition could be used to identify people this way, but as anyone knows, WiFi signals are not the heartiest of mediums.

In 2012, a similar WiFi-radio system, though without artificial intelligence or machine learning, was prototyped by researchers at the University College London. That system was interesting in that it did not shoot radio waves and read the echoes. It passively measured the ricochets WiFi signals already being played about a home for computer use.

Article Topics

 |   |   |   |   |   | 

Latest Biometrics News

 

Financial fraud prompts $14M digital identity intelligence investment, calls for action

Financial institutions and regulators continue to invest in anti-fraud and identity verification. Barclays has invested in anti-fraud platform Heka as…

 

Age estimation at the shop, age verification online: France laws tested with questions

In France, age assurance tools are showing up online and at retail vendors selling age restricted products, prompting questions from…

 

Ofcom planning more safety measures to tackle addictive design

It has been noted previously in these pages that the UK is looking to be taken seriously in pursuing its…

 

OFIQ community reviews early results of biometric quality assessment tool

The standardization of image quality for face biometrics is a major step towards making population-scale biometric systems functional, and as…

 

New binocular iris scanner from IriTech designed for high volume use cases

Iris recognition provider IriTech, Inc. has announced the launch of the IriAegis-BK, a binocular iris scanner designed for high-throughput biometric…

 

Laos begins integrating digital ID cards into public agencies

Government agencies in Laos have received the order to begin integrating the country’s chip-enabled identity cards and citizen databases. Ministries,…

Comments

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Biometric Market Analysis

Most Viewed This Week

Featured Company

Biometrics Insight, Opinion

Digital ID In-Depth

Biometrics White Papers

Biometrics Events