According to a report in Pennet.com, L-1 Identity Solutions Inc. has received two orders from the U.S. military for its family of PIER portableiris recognition and enrollment devices, which are worth more than $2.5 million. The first order is from the U.S. Army for PIER 2.3 and PIER-T devices and the second is from the U.S. Navy Spawar Systems Center for PIER 2.3 and 2.4 devices to be fielded by the U.S. Marine Corps.

The military will use the PIER devices for the military's Biometrics Automated Toolset (BAT) System. This system is for positive identification, tracking, and visualization of persons of interest. The system is also used for getting associated information using multi-modal biometrics in a scalable architecture environment.

The PIER is an extremely useful device which has the ability to store a database of up to 200,000 individuals (both left and right eye) and perform with extreme accuracy. The PIER family of devices can be combined with L-1 SIRIS matching engine in confirming an individual's identity against a database of one billion records in less than one second.

Bruce Hanson, president of L-1's wholly owned subsidiaries, SecuriMetrics Inc. and Iridian Technologies Inc., said “Iris recognition continues to gain momentum as a non-invasive and fast means of identifying people of interest in the field. The human iris contains massive amounts of detailed information unique to each individual, and because it is completely formed at 18 months of age and remains unchanged throughout one's lifetime, it is one of the most stable and accurate biometric modalities available. The U.S. military's continued use of iris-based recognition devices is evidence of its superior performance in the field where fast and precise identification of subjects can often be the difference between life and death.”

Although PIER 2.4 is similar to PIER 2.3 in functionality, the 2.4 contains twice the on-board memory, which enables it to hold a much larger database even when the device is used in an untethered mode.

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Raju Shanbhag is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.