GAITHERSBURG, Md. -- Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] and IriTech, a leading provider of iris recognition technologies, have signed a cooperation agreement to provide integrated biometrics solutions for a variety of customers. The agreement will enable cooperation in the rapidly growing marketplace for biometrics solutions.

“As a systems integrator, we’re committed to finding and furthering promising new technologies,” said Bob Eastman, Lockheed Martin Vice President, Information Systems. “This agreement with IriTech will help both organizations offer more capable solutions to our customers. It’s one of the many ways we are working to support and foster an open, innovative technology landscape in biometrics.”

Lockheed Martin is a leader in biometrics solutions and provides a full range of technologies to law enforcement, homeland security, military and intelligence customers. In May, the corporation opened its Biometric Experimentation and Advanced Concepts (BEACON) facility in White Hall, WV, to serve as a collaborative center to develop integrated biometrics solutions. BEACON provides a laboratory environment where technologies such as IriTech’s can be integrated into an end-to-end service-oriented architecture.

“We’re excited to be working with Lockheed Martin on this important technology,” said Dr. Daehoon Kim, CEO and President of IriTech. “The agreement gives us the opportunity to integrate our patented iris recognition algorithms with a variety of biometric systems and technologies. This will help us develop more powerful, open solutions to support a number of missions, customers and architectures.”

Lockheed Martin Corp.