Partnership to enable ‘plug-and-play’ 3D facial recognition

02 Jul 2019

AMS, Megvii working to develop ID system in smart devices for home, retail, security applications.

AMS, an Austria-based developer of high-performance sensor solutions, and China-based artificial intelligence pioneer Megvii have signed a partnership agreement to jointly develop and promote “complete, plug-and-play 3D face recognition solutions for any type of smart consumer or commercial device.”

Under their new memorandum of understanding, the two companies intend to offer what they are calling the world’s first off-the-shelf face recognition system for smart home, smart retail, smart building and smart security applications, that is completely independent of the user’s mobile phone.

Many mobile phone users have rapidly adopted face recognition as their preferred means of user authentication, especially for security reasons. Manufacturers of other types of products say they are now keen to gain the convenience and security benefits of implementing face recognition. ams and MEGVII plan to bring their joint solution to market before the end of 2019.

Applications and benefits

The integrated solution under development combines ams’s Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser emitter modules with Megvii’s AI software for depth mapping and face recognition. The two companies are planning to create the first 3D Active Stereo solution with very robust performance in both indoor and outdoor light conditions.

In addition, the solution will be specified to meet high security standards: for instance, says ams, “it will be suitable for use in consumer payments systems such as point-of-sale terminals.”

The two companies have combined successfully before to develop a complete face recognition solution for mobile phones. The new solution, which will be compatible with a much wider range of applications processors from various manufacturers, will greatly reduce the development time, risk and effort involved in implementing face recognition in embedded systems such as smart locks, access control equipment and payment terminals.

More information about this project is available on the ams website.

ams time-of-flight device wins at Sensors Expo

ams has also announced it was awarded two highly coveted awards at Sensors Expo, which took place in June in San Jose, Ca. The awards were the Best of Sensors Expo Innovation Award for its TMF8701 true direct time-of-flight sensor system; and the Design & Engineering Team of the Year.