1. An object identification system comprising: a normal map converter configured to receive observed object data from at least one communicatively connected sensor and convert the observed object data received to an observed normal map; a registration module configured to: receive a plurality of reference normal maps from a communicatively connected normal map database, and register the observed normal map and each of the plurality of reference normal maps to produce a plurality of registered normal map pairs; and a matching module configured to: calculate a match score for each of the plurality of registered normal map pairs, and determine at least one best match, thereby identifying the object.