An ASU professor has developed software to combat crime through face-recognition technology that may be appearing at airports, prisons and nuclear power plants across the country.
The concept originated when Forouzan Golshani was attending graduate school. Golshani's father, a member of the Baha'i faith, fell victim to a religious purge in his homeland of Iran and was executed by Islamic extremists.
"That wound has never healed for me," he said.
Guided by a religion that teaches tolerance, Golshani said he began devoting his energy to producing technology that would combat terrorism through peaceful means.
He went on to become a computer science professor at ASU. On a sabbatical from teaching, he began working on image-recognition software that would go beyond what had currently existed.
Even the most advanced software at the time could only recognize faces in perfect light and when the person is looking head on into the lens of a camera.
"Camera angle, face expressions, these are all things that throw off any 2-D imaging system," Golshani said.
The 3-D system can recognize faces at any angle by measuring distances such as the length of the nose and the space between the eyes.
It could also help combat terrorists by recognizing them at airports and carefully monitoring what is going on in highly secured areas.
The software can also search a database of images to find similarities that humans would miss. The system's intelligence can even match the face of a father with the face of a son.
The software can be set to focus on a gate and monitor whether it opens or shuts and at what time. It can also recognize specific license plates on a car.
"It can break it down into a segment that represents an event," he said.
Golshani developed the system with Youngchoon Park, chief technology officer for the Active Image Recognition company. The work was unassociated with Golshani's teaching at ASU.
The City of Glendale is currently testing the system at their water treatment plant at Union Hills Drive and 81st Avenue.
AIR's marketing specialist Art Lawida took the software to a trade show hosted by ASSI Security of Arizona, a Phoenix security system company whose clients include Bank of America, Southwest Airlines and the Maricopa County Sheriff's office.
Meghan Uhl, marketing director for ASSI, said they got excited about the program and offered to help Golshani distribute the technology.
"We believe it's going to revolutionize video security," Uhl said. "There is not other product for face recognition that does what this does."
Reach the reporter at megan.rudebeck@asu.edu.
