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DARPA's Smart-Iris Can Detect Eyes in a Moving Crowd

by Terrence O'Brien on June 1, 2010 at 07:30 AM

darpa is developing new iris-scanning technology
In 'Minority Report' Tom Cruise's character, John Anderton, has a radical surgery to replace his eyes so that he can get past security systems that scan his retina to identify him. As he's lying in a tub recovering from his black-market procedure, tiny robots sneak into the room and scan his eyes in an attempt to track down the fugitive Future Crime officer. The ability to scan retinas to identify people is straight out of a sci-fi film, but, outside of the use of spider-like drone bots, this might not be as futuristic as it seems. In fact, in the near future your eyes may not even need to be in close proximity to the scanner to be identified.

Engineers at Southern Methodist University (SMU) are working closely with DARPA to develop a new type of eye scanner that could identify a room full of people without their knowledge. The new image sensors, called Panoptes, could locate and scan a persons iris regardless of distance, and even if they're not looking directly at the camera. The system, dubbed Smart-Iris, is impervious to problems like poor lighting, glare, eye lashes, or movement. And, with the help of a new algorithm, it can function with only a partial scan.

The technology could also potentially improve the quality of images taken by cell phone cameras and document scanners, but its more interesting (and disturbing) application is in security cameras. If Philip K. Dick or Steven Spielberg had enough foresight to include this sort of technology in 'Minority Report' it would have been a very short story indeed. [From: Wired, Via: DVICE]

Tags: darpa, DARPA panoptes, DarpaPanoptes, panoptes, RetinalScanner, security, smartiris, southern methodist university, SouthernMethodistUniversity, surveillance, vision

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