Northrop Grumman [NOC] has begun to get the computer architecture in place for the Defense Department’s new biometric database and, by the end of this year, is expected to have the computer system ready to begin adding biometric search capabilities, the Army project manager overseeing the work said recently.

Northrop Grumman is currently in the second year of developing the next generation Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS), which in addition to housing fingerprints will also store other biometric records. The second year is actually the first of four option years for the contract. Northrop Grumman was selected for the award in November 2006 although the announcement was delayed two months due to a protest by Lockheed Martin [LMT], the losing bidder.

Late this year, a new “supercomputer” should be built and “then the capabilities start coming after that,” Col. Ted Jennings, project manager for DoD Biometrics, told sister publication Defense Daily in an interview. The original, or prototype ABIS, which was developed and operated by Lockheed Martin, is fingerprint based and accepts information in a certain format. With the next-generation system, which will likely be renamed, “we’re putting it into a different enhanced format that’s going to allow the functions to be scalable and also to have the capability to put in the different [biometric] modalities,” he said.

Fingerprint technology will be the baseline for the new version of ABIS. What modalities come next will depend on user requirements, Jennings said.

“And so we’re working with the user requirement community out of TRADOC (Army Training and Doctrine Command) and the Biometrics Task Force to figure out exactly what they want to go into this new capability,” Jennings said.

Meanwhile, Northrop Grumman is operating the prototype ABIS. That system is used by DoD to see if fingerprints of captured insurgents and potential terrorists match against records already on file to identity who our soldiers may have apprehended or come across. ABIS is also used to see if persons applying for work on U.S. military installations may previously have been associated with criminal, insurgent or terrorist activity.

As to when DoD will be able to transition to the next generation ABIS, Jennings said his office continues to work with the Army and the Office of Secretary of Defense on the various capabilities the system will have and when.