Carnegie Mellon’s CyLab Biometrics Center has won Gold at the 2015 Edison Awards. The research center won in the field of Applied Technology for its iris-scanning system.
CyLab was showing off that system recently, which made news with its ability to authenticate individuals from as far away as 40 feet, and through mirrors. The research team behind the system has suggested it could have a number of law enforcement and security-related applications, demonstrating a particular example in a mock traffic-stop deployment. In addition to the benefits provided by the system’s long range, it also offers a solution to situations in which faces are partially occluded, given that it needs only an iris to identify an individual.
In a statement, Carnegie Mellon College of Engineering Dean Jim Garrett praised CyLab for “creating opportunities to save lives by enabling officers to identify potentially dangerous criminals without even approaching the vehicle.” Meanwhile, CyLab founder and Research Professor Marios Savvides, who led the team, emphasized the system’s advancement beyond human capability. “The computer is doing something the human brain cannot do,” he said, adding that he’s fascinated by “how machine learning and pattern-recognition can create this artificial intelligence system that can make correct inferences from such small amounts of facial data.”
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April 27, 2015 – by Alex Perala
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