FAMME: Facial Analysis in Moving Maritime Environments is a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract in conjunction with Securics, Inc. developing a full end-to-end face recognition pipeline for unconstrained environments and, specifically, for maritime use. Methods developed include deblurring techniques for motion and atmospheric aberrations, as well as integration with robust recognition cores.

The VAST Lab is collaborating with the University of Maryland, Columbia University, University of California (San Diego), University of Southampton, and the University of Queensland on a Multi-University Research Initiative (MURI) on multiple methods of determining identity in (primarily) ship-to-ship situations. Our particular portion of the MURI entails performing face recognition at range using embedded systems and is closely aligned with the efforts in the FAMME project, though not overlapping. Specifically, research is directed toward developing more robust methods of facial analysis, as well as alternative methods of accounting for blur and other aberrations in captured imagery.