How trinamiX is tapping Qualcomm Snapdragon AI to bring heightened security to facial recognition

As the use of facial recognition continues to grow exponentially, Qualcomm Technologies is excited to be at the forefront. We brought the capability to life for our customers and offered consumers new, convenient ways to interact with their smartphones. Now, we’re working to deliver this technology to even more devices and industries while improving performance and security, too.

Enter trinamiX, a wholly owned subsidiary of the German chemical giant BASF. The company’s proprietary Beam Profile Analysis technology goes far beyond today’s biometrics, introducing live skin detection as the new standard for device security that can eliminate security breaches from masks, photos, and ‘fake’ liveness. In February, trinamiX became a Qualcomm Platform Solutions Ecosystem Member to bring its facial recognition technology powered by Snapdragon to Android phone manufacturers. Through this collaboration, trinamiX technology can now be easily incorporated into millions of Android devices for the first time while also raising the bar for best-of-breed security.

How it works

To detect live skin, trinamiX Beam Profile Analysis algorithms analyzes the profile of projected infrared laser spots with an infrared CMOS sensor. Using a single camera system, the trinamiX algorithms simultaneously extract a 2D IR image, a 3D depth map, and, most uniquely, the material classification properties of the face being scanned. This means a Beam Profile Analysis hardware module can be built from standard components, consisting of only a CMOS camera and an IR dot projector.

The process is possible because of trinamiX's proprietary algorithms and acceleration on the Qualcomm Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engine. Our engineers worked closely together with trinamiX to help bring the best facial recognition user experience possible to consumers.

After having initial success with an earlier Snapdragon design, the company switched to the Snapdragon 865 Mobile Platform and immediately saw a 10x performance increase, thanks to the Qualcomm AI Engine providing a whopping 15TOPs of AI horsepower. trinamiX hopes the technology will be available in smartphones by Q1 of 2021.

The future of facial recognition

trinamiX further envisions use-cases ranging from robotics to image and video effects, including professional-level Bokeh and segmentation. The technology also has applications in medicine and XR, where it can improve hand tracking. As connected vehicles begin to transform the auto industry, trinamiX also sees several ways its facial recognition technology can make a difference. This aligns with Qualcomm Technologies’ own view of how biometrics can help provide better user experiences.

We’re so excited to work with trinamiX in pursuit of more secure facial recognition. This technology can help us all better connect, compute, and communicate, and we see its tremendous potential to enable customers, transform industries, and enrich lives. By collaborating together, we can bring enhanced security to smartphones and devices beyond.