Taipei, Taiwan – Taiwanese scientists have developed a groundbreaking facial recognition system that could revolutionize the technology industry. This new system is not only lens-free and compact but also requires significantly less power than existing 3D surface imaging systems.
The current facial recognition technology relies on bulky projectors and lenses, which limits its application in various fields. To address this issue, a team of scientists has developed a new facial recognition system that employs flatter, simpler optics and consumes less energy. Their findings were published in the journal Nano Letters.
Commercial 3D imaging systems in smartphones currently rely on structured light to extract depth information. However, this technology comes with multiple optical components, making the devices bulky and power-consuming. Wen-Chen Hsu and his colleagues from National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University and the Hon Hai Research Institute turned to ultrathin optical components called metasurfaces as a potential solution. These metasurfaces can replace bulkier components for modulating light and have proven popular for various emerging applications.
The team replaced the standard dot projector’s vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with a photonic crystal surface-emitting laser (PCSEL) to build their own depth-sensing facial recognition system. This allowed them to generate their own highly collimated light beam, eliminating the need for bulky light guides or collimation lenses found in previous systems.
Testing their new system on a replica bust of David, the team found that their system was just as effective as existing smartphone facial recognition technology, generating nearly one and a half times more infrared dots while being 233 times smaller in terms of surface area. Not only is the system compact and cost-effective, but it is also more energy-efficient and can be integrated into a single chip. The metasurface enables the generation of customizable and versatile light patterns, expanding the system’s applicability.
The new facial recognition system represents a significant leap forward in the field, promising broader applications in various domains such as smartphones, robotics, and augmented reality. The potential integration of this technology into everyday devices could lead to a new era of energy-efficient and compact facial recognition systems.