Firming up its ability to integrate and offer multi-modal biometric solutions, Lockheed Martin [LMT] yesterday said it has signed a cooperative agreement with the Germany-based facial recognition technology firm Cognitec Systems.

“This cooperation agreement will improve our ability to offer our customers a complete and fully integrated portfolio of biometrics technologies,” Bob Eastman, Lockheed Martin’s vice president, information systems, said in a statement. “We’re also committed to helping small, innovative businesses such as Cognitec continue to advance the state-of- the-art in biometrics technology in an open and collaborative marketplace.”

Cognitec’s suite of facial recognition products, built around its FaceVACS software technology, perform data base matching, image capture and assessment, watch list crowd tracking in distributed environments, and software development kits for custom applications. The company’s largest implementation to date of facial matching against digitized images is 52 million images.

Cognitec’s technology has performed well in the National Institute of Standards Technology’s Face Recognition Vendor Tests and is being used by a variety of different customers. This combination of high performance and proven product use is one of the reasons Lockheed Martin decided to partner with Cognitec. Lockheed Martin also likes the fact that Cognitec continues to invest in advancing the development of its technology and that it has a reputation for working well with large systems integrators, a company spokesman told Defense Daily.

Last month, Lockheed Martin entered a similar relationship with IriTech, a small firm specializing in advanced algorithms and software systems for iris recognition. Lockheed Martin currently works with both L-1 Identity Solutions [ID] and IriTech for its iris recognition technology but wanted to guarantee a second source of supply for when it competes against L-1 on programs.

Cognitec said that Lockheed Martin plans to use its facial recognition technology on several projects. The company said the arrangement gives it access to projects where a small company would not normally be considered and where end customers are looking for multi-modal biometric solutions. Cognitec will continue to work with other integrators in the government market.