INFORMATION
Partnership with UK SMEs: OmniPerception
23 Apr 2009
Face recognition technology is set to enhance CCTV systems as a result of a £1.5 million partnership between BAE Systems and Surrey-based Omniperception.
The team’s ground breaking research is set to transform the development of biometric recognition technology worldwide, adding lip movement and speech pattern recognition to existing face recognition technology. Combined with behavioural biometric analysis, the work will offer law enforcers new ways of securing valuable evidence about a suspect’s identity from CCTV - faster and more accurately than has ever been possible before.
The research will also forward new advanced face finding and tracking technology for use with CCTV footage; and improved automatic detection and understanding of behaviour and events for multi-camera systems. It’s hoped it will improve security in public places such as airports and train stations.
The initiative forms part of our Investment in Innovation programme, set up in 2008. The programme aims to encourage and support innovative small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the development and delivery of new technology to improve security, in the UK and world-wide. The face recognition and behavioural biometric work with OmniPerception is one of the programme’s first projects.
David McIntosh, chief executive of OmniPerception, said: “The nation has spent an awful lot of money on cameras. We have more CCTV cameras per head than any other country in the world. Although these cameras are taking images all the time, the footage is often unusable.
“Our work with BAE Systems aims to make CCTV and other imaging systems a lot more intelligent. We not only want to monitor facial features, but also automatically track distinctive characteristics such as the way someone walks or smiles.”
David Mullin of BAE Systems said: “Our investment in this working partnership with OmniPerception underlines our confidence in the vital part this innovative company already plays in improving security through biometric and image processing technology; and its ability to take present day security capabilities to new even higher levels.”
The 18 month-long project will see BAE Systems provide financial, project management and engineering support to the team of experts from OmniPerception conducting the main research & development programme.