Sarnoff Corporation announced it has been selected by Global Animal Management, Inc. (GAM) to develop the first portable equine iris capture and identification system to help identify and track horses.

Based on Sarnoff's Iris on the Move (IOM) technology, the system will quickly capture a horse's iris image with a low visibility infrared light source from a distance, even while the animal is moving. In this way, the horse is not disturbed or unnecessarily stressed as is common using today's methods of identification which often involve tattooing and manually checking marks on horses.

"In the high stakes sport of horse racing, correctly identifying horses is not nearly as fast or simple as it needs to be," said Mark Clifton, Vice President, Products and Services at Sarnoff Corporation. "It can take more than a half hour to check a horse's tattoos and markings, or even longer if they've faded over time, plus they're easy to fake. Sarnoff's new portable equine Iris ID system, based on decades of vision systems expertise and research, allows users to quickly and accurately identify horses right before a race, without undue stress on the animal."

Sarnoff's IOM is a proven and extensively tested biometric identification system that is currently deployed in several secure government facilities and private corporations. The technology is ideal for a wide variety of uses in addition to equine identification, including banking ID verification, border initiatives, event security, payment systems, and employee access.