MetaLenz offers polarization image sensor for face recognition

Technology News | November 19, 2023

By Peter Clarke

MetaLenz (Boston, Mass.) has developed an image sensor that can also sense the polarization state of light providing a useful means of biometric security.

The technology is dubbed PolarID and MetaLenz is says the technology could be deployed as part of facial recognition systems in smartphones.

Polar ID harnesses meta-optic technology to extract additional information such as facial contour details and to detect human tissue liveness from a single image. It is more compact and cost-effective than incumbent ‘structured light’ face authentication solutions which require an expensive dot-pattern projector and multiple images.

The technology has been demonstrated on a smartphone reference design powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform.

Polar ID combines the polarization image sensor with post-processing algorithms and machine learning models to recognize and authenticate the phone’s registered user. MetaLenz has worked with Qualcomm Technologies leverage the advanced image signal processing capabilities of the Qualcomm Spectra ISP while also implementing mission critical aspects of our algorithms in the secure framework of the Qualcomm Hexagon NPU.

“The result is an extremely fast and compute-efficient face unlock solution ready for OEMs to use in their next generation of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered flagship Android smartphones,” said Pawel Latawiec, CTO of Metalenz, in a statement.

The technology can aslo be used for some health screening applications, bio marker detection and air quality monitoring.

MetaLenz said Polar ID is under early evaluation with some smartphone OEMs, and evaluation kits will be made available to others early in 2024.