Innovation Pipeline

When Artiom Yukhin founded A4 Vision, in the days before 9/11, he thought his 3D facial-recognition technology would be a good fit for plastic surgeons. But Sunnyvale, California-based A4 is now playing a role in international security, as governments and private institutions rush to equip passports and ID badges with recognition technology.

A4’s proprietary hardware and software for capturing 3D facial-image data represent a step forward from 2D image capture, which is sensitive to light and shadow and prone to failure.

Here’s how it works: A4’s system features an infrared camera that maps the face with a 40,000-point light pattern of vertical and horizontal lines. The pattern is distorted by the face’s geography— a cleft chin or a beauty mark—and these unique distortions render an accurate 3D picture. A video camera records the image, which is entered into a 3D reconstruction algorithm and stored in a database for subsequent matching.

Grant Evans, CEO of A4 Vision, says one advantage of the A4 system is that it can work at night because it uses infrared light. He says other 2D and 3D systems do not work nearly as well in the dark. But A4 has to get close: the technology is good at identifying faces in near proximity but not so good at reading faces from a distance.

The U.S. government is now testing A4’s technology. The idea is eventually to use the A4 system to snap 3D images of people entering the country, then check the images against a database of 3D mugshots. In this scenario, the system captures images from a video feed, then transfers them to a central database for computer matching. A4 says that, unlike a 2D system, its technology can make an identity match regardless of the angle.

A few airports in France are also using the A4 technology to create security badges containing 3D facial data for pilots, mechanics and other employees who access highly secure areas. To date, A4 Vision has sold its technology primarily to airports and banks in France, Italy and Singapore.

Customers pay about $1,000 for the A4 hardware, which includes an infrared camera. Evans says the price is five times cheaper than anything else on the market. Users must also purchase the software applications that perform the actual verification.

A4 CTO Yukhin was a researcher at the Infra Red Devices Lab in the Electronic & Laser Technology Institute of Bauman Moscow State Technical University. He directed the 3D Machine Vision Research team at Bauman. CEO Evans has served as a senior executive at several security companies, including Identix and Identicator Technology.

Besides A4 Vision, other companies in the facial-biometrics market include Viisage and the aforementioned Identix, which is working with Unisys on 3D facial R&D. Another noteworthy competitor is Parimics, featured in an earlier issue of Innovation Pipeline. A4 says it has a 12-month to 18-month lead on its competitors.

Analysis: A4 Vision recently put the finishing touches on a $24 million financing round. Venture investors include Menlo Ventures, MyCube and Tako Ventures (Larry Ellison’s investment vehicle), as well as large corporate investors like Motorola and NTT. Prianka Chopra, an industry analyst with research firm Frost & Sullivan, believes A4 has a lead on facial-recognition rivals because it is actually deploying some of its products, while others are still solely engaged in R&D efforts. “A4 Vision is expected to hold a majority market share in this space and stands to gain as the market shifts to this technology in the future,â€? she says. –Tom Stein