The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), the research and development arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, announced on March 11 the Biometric Recognition & Identification at Altitude and Range (BRIAR) program — a multiyear research effort to develop new software systems capable of performing whole-body biometric identification from great heights and long ranges.
The program’s advanced research and technologies will enable the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense to recognize or identify individuals under challenging conditions, such as from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), at far distances, and through distortions caused by atmospheric turbulence.
“National security technologies must accurately and reliably operate under conditions that are extremely difficult for existing biometric technologies to succeed in,” said program manager Dr. Lars Ericson. “I am confident that our excellent team of research organizations, scientists, and engineers will push the research forward and build technologies that are significantly ahead of the current state-of-the-art.”
Through a competitive Broad Agency Announcement, IARPA awarded BRIAR research contracts to address the full range of research objectives to the following teams:
- Accenture Federal Services LLC
- Intelligent Automation, Inc.
- Kitware, Inc.
- Michigan State University
- Systems & Technology Research
- The University of Houston
- The University of Southern California
Through the same process, IARPA awarded focused research contracts to teams from Carnegie Mellon University and General Electric Research in support of the overall effort.
Test and evaluation work for the program will be performed by the Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command C5ISR Center, Research and Technology Integration Directorate.
Source: IARPA
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