Cogent has announced the release of the Fusion, a ruggedized, multi-modal, handheld biometric system. The device is designed to assist military and law enforcement personnel in austere environments around the world.

The company says the device was designed and built by Cogent from the ground up with input from the Department of Defense´s Special Operations community. It is built to military MIL-STD-810 and Ingress Protection standards to handle stringent conditions. It has also been rigorously tested by the US Army´s Biometric Task Force (BTF).

The Fusion is equipped with full multi-modal capability - with a 500 dpi FBI certified fingerprint sensor, high resolution camera for facial portrait capture, and high resolution infrared camera for iris and fingerprint latent capture. The Fusion can capture and store tens of thousands of records consisting of forensic-quality fingerprints, latent fingerprints, iris images, photos, and textual data for on-board watchlist searching.

From a portability viewpoint the device weighs in at 1.2 pounds and is equipped with a 3.5 inch colour display and fits in the cargo pocket of standard tactical trousers.

Text entry by operators is achieved using a GUI, multiple drop-down menus, and expanded QWERTY keyboard.

The device has built-in wireless connectivity, being able to wirelessly transfer secure data via 802.11b/g, Bluetooth, GSM, or GPRS.