JLR to go keyless; use face, gait recognition to open cars

British luxury automaker Jaguar Land Rover is working on a new technology which will open your car, not by using a key, but by scanning your face. The system uses facial recognition and gait analysis to unlock car doors.

Jaguar Land Rover revealed the details of the technology in a recently published patent application.

The system uses cameras mounted under the windows to capture both video and still images of the driver. The technology would then match images to those saved on the car's internal computer, and unlock the doors if it detects the vehicle's owner approaching.

The patent application states, ''The user of the vehicle must carry out a registration process which requires them to record a still image of their face and a moving image such as a hand gesture or their gait as they approach the vehicle.''

It further adds, ''The vehicle doors may be controlled independently of one another or many be controlled as a single unit. The moving image may be a gesture, such as a hand wave, a salute or another hand signal which the user makes on approach to or arrival at the vehicle.''

This system of Jaguar Land Rover helps in avoiding the hassle of carrying car keys. Using gait analysis also ensures that thieves could not fool the system by holding up pictures of the owner's face.

Owners need not worry in case they sell their vehicle. Jaguar Land Rover said that ''If the vehicle is sold, the stored images can be removed and new authorised image identifiers stored instead.''

This technology has its own challenges which Jaguar Land Rover is working to simplify. ''It is an ongoing challenge of the automotive industry to improve vehicle functionality and design and to further enhance the sophisticated feel of vehicles without additional cost. In particular, vehicle personalisation, where vehicle functions and features can be aligned with specific user requirements is an increasingly common aim. As far as door entry is concerned, such systems must also be robust against misuse, for example theft or loss of a key-fob so that vehicle security is maintained.''