The Tactical Imager for Night/Day Extended-Range Surveillance (TINDERS) is a tactical imaging system that can covertly track and zoom in on a face hundreds of meters away, capture an image, and identify a person through computer face recognition, in the light of day or the dark of night.

The ability to covertly detect individuals and determine their identities, at night, and from a great distance would provide a major advantage to our forces for a wide range of tactical missions, both offensive and defensive. TheTINDERS system, under development by the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation under contract to ONR, is exploiting a new sensor modality to enable covert, long-range, day and night face recognition with a lightweight, fully automated sensor package suitable for tactical missions.

Examples of facial images acquired using (left) visible, (center) 980-nm SWIR, and (right) 1550-nm SWIR illumination.

Current options for nighttime face recognition are limited. Thermal infrared imaging is commonly used for night vision applications, but this lacks the resolution and repeatability needed for face recognition. The TINDERS system will illuminate the subject with a “short-wave infrared” (SWIR) beam of light that is completely invisible and eye-safe, and will produce a repeatable facial image that can be quickly matched against a gallery of standard photos using computer face-recognition algorithms.

In its final form, the TINDERS optical assembly will weigh only 10 lbs and be capable of zooming into and tracking a face out to a range of 800 m. The optics, along with all supporting hardware and software, will be integrated into a rugged, easy-to-use, portable system. TINDERS will be the first system capable of long-range night-time face-recognition, enabling a powerful new capability.