APPLIED NANOTECH, INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: Uniquely identifying an individual based on biometric information can currently be perform

Description

Uniquely identifying an individual based on biometric information can currently be performed by using fingerprints, facial images and eye scans. These techniques frequently require the cooperation or at a minimum the acknowledgement from an individual that information is being gathered from them. An urgent need arises for non-cooperative surreptitious biometric collection tools. Such a biometric that can be collected from a distance (space and time) is an individual"s scent. For individual identification, one needs to look at the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the scent that reflect the individual"s gene expression. The Phase I effort established an initial list VOCs that are known to be genetically regulated, established concentration levels to sensed, formulated an algorithm to uniquely identify an individual and demonstrated feasibility that a gas chromatograph coupled with a differential mobility spectrometer (GC/DMS) can provide the needed selectivity and sensitivity in a small, robust and relatively inexpensive package. The Phase 2 effort will produce algorithm software to uniquely identify an individual based on their genetically controlled VOCs as measured on a GC/DMS tool. We will design a study to verify and validate these algorithms. We will construct two GC/DMS prototypes demonstrating improved state-of-the-art of IBIS technology.