CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The term “biometrics” is derived from the Greek words “bio” (life) and “metrics” (to
measure). Automated biometric systems have only become available over the last few
decades, due to significant advances in the field of computer processing. Many of these new
automated techniques, however, are based on ideas that were originally conceived hundreds,
even thousands of years ago.

“Biometrics” is a general term used alternatively to describe a characteristic or a process.

As a process:

1: Automated methods of recognizing an individual based on the measurable biological

(anatomical and physiological) and behavioral characteristics.

As a characteristic:

2: A measurable biological (anatomical and physiological) and behavioral characteristics

that can be used for automated recognition.

BIOMETRICS refers to the automatic identification of a person based on his

physiological / behavioral characteristics. This method of identification is preferred for
various reasons; the person to be identified is required to be physically present at the point of
identification; identification based on biometric techniques obviates the need to remember a
password or carry a token.

A biometric is a unique, measurable characteristic or trait for automatically

recognizing or verifying the identity of a human being. Biometrics is a powerful combination
of science and technology that can be used to protect and secure our most valuable
information and property.

With the increased use of computers or vehicles of information technology, it is

necessary to restrict access to sensitive or personal data. By replacing PINs, biometric
techniques can potentially prevent unauthorized access to fraudulent use of ATMs, cellular
phones, smart cards, desktop PCs, workstations, and computer networks. PINs and passwords
may be forgotten, and token based methods of identification like passports and driver’s

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licenses may be forged, stolen, or lost .Thus biometric systems of identification are enjoying
a renewed interest.

Recognisation requires the system to look through many stored sets of characteristics
and pick the one that matches the unknown individual being presented. Various types of
biometric systems are being used for real–time identification; the most popular are based on
face recognition and fingerprint matching.

Biometric technologies are becoming the foundation of an extensive array of highly secure
identification and personal verification solutions. The basic idea behind biometrics is that our
bodies contain unique properties that can be used to distinguish us from others. A biometric
system is essentially a pattern recognition system, which makes a personal identification by
determining the authenticity of a specific physiological or behavioral characteristics
possessed by the user.

An important issue in designing a practical system is to determine how an individual

is identified. Depending on the context, a biometric system can be either a verification
(authentication) system an identification system. Verification involves confirming or denying
a person’s claimed identity. In identification one has to establish a person’s identity.
Identification systems based on biometrics are important building blocks in simplifying our
interaction with the myriad digital systems and devices that we are all using in increasing
numbers.

1.1 LEVELS OF SECURITY OF BIOMETRIC SYSTEM ARE:

 Something that you have - such as an ID badge with a photograph on it.

 Something that you know - such as a password or PIN number.

 Something which you are - such as biometric data – fingerprints, iris, voice or face
scans.

Figure 1.1: Explains the meaning of definition

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Biometrics is rapidly evolving technology, which is being used in forensics such as criminal
identification and prison security, and has the potential to be used in a large range of civilian
application areas. Biometrics can be used transactions conducted via telephone and Internet
(electronic commerce and electronic banking). In automobiles, biometrics can replace keys
with key -less entry devices.

Biometric systems have been researched and tested for a few decades, but have only recently
entered into the public consciousness because of high profile applications, usage in
entertainment media (though often not realistically) and increased usage by the public in day-
to-day activities. Example deployments within the United States Government include the
FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), the US-VISIT
program, the Transportation Workers Identification Credentials (TWIC program, and the
Registered Traveler (RT) program. Many companies are also implementing biometric
technologies to secure areas, maintain time records, and enhance user convenience. For
example, for many years Disney World has employed biometric devices for season ticket
holders to expedite and simplify the process of entering its parks, while ensuring that the
ticket is used only by the individual to whom it was issued. One of the oldest and most basic
examples of a characteristic that is used for recognition by humans is the face. Since the
beginning of civilization, humans have used faces to identify known and unknown
individuals

1.2 INTEGRATED COMPONENTS OF BIOMETRIC SYSTEM

1. A sensor is used to collect the data and convert the information to a digital format.

2. Signal processing algorithms perform quality control activities and develop the biometric
template.

3. A data storage component keeps information that new biometric template will be
compared to.

4. A matching algorithm compares the new biometric template to one or more templates
kept in data storage.

5. Finally, a decision process (either automated or human-assisted) users the results from the
matching components to make a system-level decision.

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1.3 BIOMETRIC MODALITIES

Commonly implemented or studied biometric modalities include fingerprint, face, iris, voice,
signature and hand geometry. Many other modalities are in various stages of developments
and assessment. There is not one biometric modality that is best for all implementations.
Many factors must be taken in account when implementing a biometric device including
location, security risks, task (identification or verification), expected number of users, user
circumstances, existing data, etc.

It is also important to note that biometric modalities are in varying stages of maturity.

Fingerprint Recognition

Face Recognition

Iris Recognition

Hand/Finger Geometry

Many other identification methods are in various stages of developments and/or

commercialization. Following are some examples.

Speaker Recognition

Dynamic Signature

Retina Recognition

1.4 HISTORY

When we talk about biometric history, we would realize that since time immemorial
people always tried their best to use some way or the other so that they could identify one
person from another, whether it was through footprints or tattoos or photos. Biometric history
indicates that the science did not originate at a single place. People all over the world were
using the basics for mainly identifying individuals from each other.

The ancient Egyptians and the Chinese played a large role in biometrics' history.
Although biometric technology seems to belong in the twenty-first century, the history of
biometrics goes back thousands of years. Possibly the most primary known instance of
biometrics in practice was a form of finger printing being used in China in the 14th century,
as reported by explorer Joao de Barros.

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Barros wrote that the Chinese merchants were stamping children's palm prints and footprints
on paper with ink so as to differentiate the young children from one another. This is one of
the most primitive known cases of biometrics in use and is still being used today.

Bertillon developed a technique of multiple body measurements which later got

named after him “Bertillonage”. His method was then used by police authorities throughout
the world, until it quickly faded when it was discovered that some people shared the same
measurements and based on the measurements alone, two people could get treated as one.
After the failure of Bertillonage, the police started using finger printing, which was
developed by Richard Edward Henry of Scotland Yard, essentially reverting to the same
methods used by the Chinese for years.

Commercial advancements for biometric devices began in the 1970s when a system
called Identimat which measured the shape of the hand and length of the fingers was used as
part of a time clock at Shearson Hamill, a Wall Street investment firm. Subsequently,
hundreds of Identimat devices were used to establish identity for physical access at secure
facilities run by Western Electric, U.S. Naval Intelligence, the Department of Energy, and
U.S. Naval Intelligence and like organizations.

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CHAPTER 2

BLOCK DIAGRAM OF BIOMETRIC SYSTEM

Biometric devices consist of a reader or scanning device, software that converts the gathered
information into digital form, and a database that stores the biometric data for comparison
with previous records. When converting the biometric input, the software identifies specific
points of data as match points. The match points are processed using an algorithm into a
value that can be compared with biometric data in the database.

2.1 CHARACTERSTICS OF BIOMETRIC FEATURE

(a) Universality, which means that every person should have the characteristic,

(b) Uniqueness, two persons should not have the same term or measurement of
Characteristic.

(c) Permanence, the characteristic should be invariant with time.

(d) Measurability, the characteristic can be quantified that is the origin of the Cameras used in
biometric systems are generally either CCD (charge couple device) or CMOS (combined
metal oxide semiconductor) image sensors. CCD is comparatively more costly than CMOS.

Figure 2.1: Basic block diagram of biometrics system

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The main operations a system can perform are enrollment and test. During the enrollment,
biometric information from an individual is stored. During the test, biometric information is
detected and compared with the stored information. Note that it is crucial that storage and
retrieval of such systems themselves be secure if the biometric system is, robust.

The first block (sensor) is the interface between the real world and the system; it has to
acquire all the necessary data. Most of the times it is an image acquisition system, but it can
change according to the characteristics desired. A sample of the biometric trait is captured,
processed by a computer, and stored for later comparison.

The second block performs all the necessary pre-processing: it has to remove artifacts
from the sensor, to enhance the input (e.g. removing background noise), to use some kind of
normalization, etc.

In the third block features needed are extracted. This step is an important step as the
correct features need to be extracted and the optimal way. A vector of numbers or an image
with particular properties is used to create a template. A template is a synthesis of all the
characteristics extracted from the source, in the optimal size to allow for adequate
identifiability. All Biometric authentications require comparing a registered or enrolled
biometric sample (biometric template or identifier) against a newly captured biometric
sample.

If enrollment is being performed where the biometric system identifies a person from
the entire enrolled population by searching a database for a match based solely on the
biometric. For example, an entire database can be searched to verify a person has not applied
for entitlement benefits under two different names. This is sometimes called “one-to-many”
matching.

If a verification phase is being performed, the biometric system authenticates a

person’s claimed identity from their previously enrolled pattern. This is also called “one-to-
one” matching. The obtained template is passed to a matcher that compares it with other
existing templates. The matching program will analyze the template with the input. This will
then be output for any specified use or purpose.

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CHAPTER 3

FINGERPRINT RECOGNITION

Fingerprint identification is one of the most well-known and publicized biometrics. Because
of their uniqueness and consistency over time, fingerprints have been used for identification
for over a century, more recently becoming automated (i.e. a biometric) due to advancements
in computing capabilities. Fingerprint identification is popular because of the inherent ease in
acquisition, the numerous sources (ten fingers) available for collection, and their established
use and collections by law enforcement and immigration.

Humans have used fingerprints for personal identification for many centuries and the
matching accuracy using fingerprints has been shown to be very high. Fingerprinting is
probably the best-known biometric- method of identification used for 100 years. There are a
few variants of image capture technology available for such commercially oriented
fingerprint sensor, including optical, silicon, ultrasound, thermal and hybrid.

Among all the biometric techniques, fingerprint-based Identification is the oldest

method that has been successfully used in numerous applications. Everyone is known to have
unique, immutable fingerprints. A fingerprint is made of a series of ridges and furrows on the
surface of the finger as shown in the fig 3. The uniqueness of a fingerprint can be determined
by the pattern of ridges and furrows as well as minutiae points. Minutiae points are the local
ridge characteristics that occur either at a ridge ending or a ridge bifurcation. A ridge ending
is defined as the point where the ridge ends abruptly and the ridge bifurcation is the point
where the ridge splits into two or more branches.

When a user places their finger on the terminals scanner the image is electronically
read, analyzed, and compared with a previously recorded image of the same finger which has
been stored in the database. The imaging process is based on digital holography, using an
electro-optical scanner about the size of a thumbprint. The scanner reads three-dimensional
data from the finger such as skin undulations, and ridges and valleys, to create a unique
pattern that is composed into a template file.

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 Figure 3.1: Fingerprint classification of 6 categories (a) arch, (b) tented arch, (c) right loop,
(d) left loop, (e) whorl, and (f) twin loop

An algorithm is developed to classify fingerprints into five classes, namely, whorl,

right loop, arch and tented arch as shown in figure 3.1. Critical points in a finger print, called
core and delta are marked on one of the fingers as shown in figure 3.1 (c). The core is the
inner point, normally in the middle of the print, around which swirls, loops, or arches center.
It is frequently characterized by a ridge ending and several acutely curved ridges. Deltas are
the points, normally at the lower left and right hand of the fingerprint, around which a
triangular series of ridges center. The algorithm separates the number of ridges present in
four directions (0 degree, 45 degree, 90 degree and 135 degree) by filtering the central part of
a fingerprint with a bank of Gabor filters. This information is quantized to generate a finger
code which is used for classification. To avoid fake-finger attacks, some systems employ so-
called liveness detection technology, which takes advantage of the sweat activity of human
bodies. High-magnification lenses and special illumination technologies capture the finger’s
perspiration and pronounce the finger dead or alive.

3.1 FINGERPRINT APPROACH

A fingerprint usually appears as a series of dark lines that represent the high, peaking portion
of the friction ridge skin, while the valleys between these ridges appears as white space and
are the low, shallow portion of the friction ridge skin.

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Fingerprint identification is based primarily on the minutiae, or the location and direction of
the ridge endings and bifurcations (splits) along a ridge path.

The image below present examples of fingerprint features: (3.2) two types of minutiae i.e.
ridges ending and ridges bifurcation and (3.3) examples of other detailed characteristics
sometimes used during the automatic classification and minutiae extraction processes.

Figure 3.2: Minutiae

The types of information that can be collected from a fingerprint’s friction ridge impression
include the flow of the friction ridges (Level 1 Detail), the presence or absence of features
along the individual friction ridge paths and their sequence (Level 2 Detail), and the intricate
detail of a single ridge (Level 3 Detail), Recognition is usually based on the first and second
levels of detail or just the latter.

AFIS technology exploits some of these fingerprint features. Friction ridges do not always
flow continuously throughout a pattern and often result in specific characteristics such as
ending ridges, dividing ridges and dots, or other information. An AFIS is designed to
interpret the flow of the overall ridges to assign a fingerprint classification and then extract
the minutiae detail – a subset of the total amount of information available yet enough
information available to effectively search a large repository of fingerprints.

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 Figure 3.3: Other Fingerprint Characteristics

3.1.1 HARDWARE

A variety of sensor types- optical, capacitive, ultrasound and thermal- are used for collecting
the digital image of a fingerprint surface. Optical sensors take an image of the fingerprint,
and are the most common sensor today. The capacitive sensor determines each pixel value
based on the capacitance measured, made possible because an area of air(valley) has
significantly less capacitance than an area of finger(friction ridge skin).

Other fingerprint sensor capture images by employing high frequency ultrasound or optical
devices that use prisms to detect the change in light reflectance related to the fingerprint.
Thermal scanners require a swipe of a finger across a surface to measure the difference in
temperature over time to create a digital image.

3.1.2 SOFTWARE

The two main categories of fingerprint matching techniques are minutiae-based matching and
pattern matching. Pattern matching simply compares two images to see how similar they are.
Pattern matching is usually used in fingerprint systems to detect duplicates. The most widely
used recognition techniques, minutiae-based matching, relies on the minutiae points
described above, specifically the location and direction of each point.

3.2 SYSTEM LEVEL DESIGN

A fingerprint recognition system constitutes of fingerprint acquiring device, minutia extractor
and minutia matcher

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 Figure 3.4: Simplified Fingerprint Recognition System

For fingerprint acquisition, optical or semi-conduct sensors are widely used. They have
high efficiency and acceptable accuracy except for some cases that the user’s finger is too
dirty or dry. However, the testing database for my project is from the available fingerprints
provided by FVC2002 (Fingerprint Verification Competition 2002). So no acquisition stage
is implemented.

The minutia extractor and minutia matcher modules are explained in detail in the next part
for algorithm design and other subsequent sections.

3.3 ALGORITHM LEVEL DESIGN

To implement a minutia extractor, a three-stage approach is widely used by researchers. They

are preprocessing, minutia extraction and post processing stage [Figure 3.5].

Figure 3.5: Minutia Extractor

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For the fingerprint image preprocessing stage, Histogram Equalization and Fourier Transform
to do image enhancement. And then the fingerprint image is binarized using the locally
adaptive threshold method. The image segmentation task is fulfilled by a three-step approach:
block direction estimation, segmentation by direction intensity and Region of Interest
extraction by Morphological operations. Most methods used in the preprocessing stage are
developed by other researchers but they form a brand new combination in my project through
trial and error. Also the morphological operations for extraction ROI are introduced to
fingerprint image segmentation.

For minutia extraction stage, three thinning algorithms are tested and the Morphological
thinning operation is finally bid out with high efficiency and pretty good thinning quality.
The minutia marking is a simple task as most literatures reported but one special case is
found during my implementation and an additional check mechanism is enforced to avoid
such kind of oversight.

For the post processing stage, a more rigorous algorithm is developed to remove false minutia
based on. Also a novel representation for bifurcations is proposed to unify terminations and
bifurcations.

Figure 3.6: Minutia Matcher

The minutia matcher chooses any two minutias as a reference minutia pair and then match
their associated ridges first. If the ridges match well, two fingerprint images are aligned and
matching is conducted for all remaining minutia [Figure 3.6].

3.4 FINGERPRINT IMAGE ENHANCEMENT

Fingerprint Image enhancement is to make the image clearer for easy further operations.
Since the fingerprint images acquired from sensors or other medias are not assured with
perfect quality, those enhancement methods, for increasing the contrast between ridges and

13
furrows and for connecting the false broken points of ridges due to insufficient amount of ink,
are very useful for keep a higher accuracy to fingerprint recognition.

Two Methods are adopted in my fingerprint recognition system: the first one is Histogram
Equalization; the next one is Fourier Transform.

3.4.1 HISTOGRAM EQUALIZATION:

Histogram equalization is to expand the pixel value distribution of an image so as to

increase the perceptional information. The original histogram of a fingerprint image has the
bimodal type [Figure 3.7], the histogram after the histogram equalization occupies all the
range from 0 to 255 and the visualization effect is enhanced [Figure 3.8].

Figure 3.7 the Original histogram Figure 3.8 Histogram after the
of a fingerprint image Histogram Equalization

The right side of the following figure [Figure 3.7] is the output after the histogram
equalization.

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 Figure 3.9: Histogram Enhancement.
Original Image (Left). Enhanced image (Right)

3.4.2 FINGERPRINT ENHANCEMENT BY FOURIER TRANSFORM

We divide the image into small processing blocks (32 by 32 pixels) and perform the Fourier
transform according to:

(1),

for u = 0, 1, 2, ..., 31 and v = 0, 1, 2, ..., 31.

In order to enhance a specific block by its dominant frequencies, we multiply the FFT of
the block by its magnitude a set of times. Where the magnitude of the original FFT =
abs(F(u,v)) = |F(u,v)|.

Get the enhanced block according to

(2),

where F-1(F(u,v)) is done by:

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 (3)

for x = 0, 1, 2, ..., 31 and y = 0, 1, 2, ..., 31.

The k in formula (2) is an experimentally determined constant, which we choose k=0.45 to

calculate. While having a higher "k" improves the appearance of the ridges, filling up small
holes in ridges, having too high a "k" can result in false joining of ridges. Thus a termination
might become a bifurcation. Figure 3.10 presents the image after FFT enhancement.

Figure 3.10 Fingerprint enhancement by FFT

Enhanced image (left), Original image (right)

The enhanced image after FFT has the improvements to connect some falsely broken
points on ridges and to remove some spurious connections between ridges. The shown image
at the left side of figure 3.10 is also processed with histogram equalization after the FFT
transform. The side effect of each block is obvious but it has no harm to the further
operations because I find the image after consecutive binarization operation is pretty good as
long as the side effect is not too severe.

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3.5 FINGERPRINT IMAGE BINARIZATION

Fingerprint Image Binarization is to transform the 8-bit Gray fingerprint image to a 1-bit
image with 0-value for ridges and 1-value for furrows. After the operation, ridges in the
fingerprint are highlighted with black color while furrows are white.

A locally adaptive binarization method is performed to binarize the fingerprint image. Such
a named method comes from the mechanism of transforming a pixel value to 1 if the value is
larger than the mean intensity value of the current block (16x16) to which the pixel belongs
[Figure 3.11].

Figure 3.11: Finger Print Image After Adaptive Binarization

Binary Image(left),Enhanced Fray Image(right)

3.6 MINUTIA EXTRACTION

The thinned ridge map is then filtered by other three Morphological operation to remove
some H breaks, isolated point and spikes.

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3.6.1 Fingerprint Ridge Thinning

Ridge Thinning is to eliminate the redundant pixels of ridges till the ridges are just one pixel
wide uses an iterative, parallel thinning algorithm. In each scan of the full fingerprint image,
the algorithm marks down redundant pixels in each small image window (3x3). And finally
removes all those marked pixels after several scans. In my testing, such an iterative, parallel
thinning algorithm has bad efficiency although it can get an ideal thinned ridge map after
enough scans uses a one-in-all method to extract thinned ridges from gray-level fingerprint
images directly. Their method traces along the ridges having maximum gray intensity value.
However, binarization is implicitly enforced since only pixels with maximum gray intensity
value are remained. Also in my testing, the advancement of each trace step still has large
computation complexity although it does not require the movement of pixel by pixel as in
other thinning algorithms. Thus the third method is bid out which uses the built-in
Morphological thinning function in MATLAB.

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CHAPTER 4

PALM PRINT RECOGNITION

Palm print recognition inherently implements many of the same matching characteristics that
have allowed fingerprint recognition to be one of the most well-known and best publicized
biometrics. Both palm and finger biometrics are represented by the information presented in a
friction ridge impression. This information combines ridge flow, ridge characteristics, and
ridge structures of the raised portion of the epidermis. The data represented by these friction
ridge impressions allows a determination that corresponding areas of friction ridge
impressions either originated from the same source. Because fingerprints and palms have
both uniqueness and permanence, they have been used for over a century as a trusted form of
identification. However, palm recognition has been slower in becoming automated due to
some restraints in computing capabilities and live-scan technologies.
Palm geometry recognition systems are based on a number of measurements taken from the
human hand, including its shape, size of palm, and lengths and widths of the fingers. The
technique is very simple, relatively easy to use, and inexpensive. Environmental factors such
as dry weather or individual anomalies such as dry skin do not appear to have any negative
effects on the verification accuracy of hand geometry-based systems. The geometry of the
hand is not known to be very distinctive and palm geometry based recognition systems
cannot be scaled up for systems requiring identification of an individual from a large
population. Further, palm geometry information may not be invariant during the growth
period of children. In addition, an individual's jewelry (e.g., rings) or limitations in dexterity
(e.g., from arthritis), may pose further challenges in extracting the correct palm geometry
information. The physical size of a palm geometry-based system is large, and it cannot be
embedded in certain devices like laptops.

Figure 4.1: Palm geometry system

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4.1 PALM PRINT RECOGNITION APPROACH

Palm identification, just like fingerprint identification, is based on the aggregate of

information presented in a friction ridge impression. This information presented in a friction
ridge impression. This information includes the flow of the friction ridges (Level 1 Detail),
the presence or absence of features along the individual friction ridge paths and their
sequences (Level 2 Detail), and the intricate detail of a single ridge (Level 3 Detail). To
understand this recognition concept, one must first understand this physiology of the ridges
and valleys of a fingerprint or palm. When recorded, a fingerprint or palm print appears as a
white space and is the low, shallow portion of the friction ridged skin. This is the shown in
figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2: Fingerprint Ridges (Dark Lines) vs. Fingerprint Valleys (White Lines).

Palm recognition technology exploits some of these palm features. Friction ridges do not
always flow continuously throughout a pattern and often result in specific characteristics such
as ending ridges or dividing ridges and dots. A palm recognition system is designed to
interpret the flow of the overall ridges to assign a classification and then extract the minutiae
detail- a subset of the total amount of the information available, yet enough information to
effectively search a large repository of palm prints. Minutiae are limited to the location,
direction, and orientation of the ridge endings and bifurcations (splits) along a ridge path. The
images in Figure 4.3 present a pictorial representation of the regions of the palm, two types of
minutiae, and examples of other detailed characteristics used during the automatic
classification and minutiae extraction processes.

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Figure 4.3: Palm Print and Close-up Showing Two Types of Minutiae and Other
Characteristic.

4.1.1 HARDWARE
A variety of sensor types- capacitive, optical, ultrasound and thermal - can be used for
collecting the digital image of a palm surface; however, traditional live-scan methodologies
have been slow to adapt to the larger capture areas required for digitizing palm prints.
Challenges for sensors attempting to attain high-resolution palm images are still being dealt
with today. One of the most common approaches, when employs the capacitive sensor,
determines each pixel value based on the capacitance measured, made possible because an
area of palm (ridge). Other palm sensors capture images by employing high frequency
ultrasound or optical devices that use prisms to detect the change in light reflectance related
to the palm. Thermal scanners require a swipe of a palm across a surface to measure the
differences in temperature over time to create a digital image. Capacitive, optical, and
ultrasound sensors require only placement of a palm.

4.1.2 SOFTWARE
Some palm recognition systems scan the entire palm, while others require the palms to be
segmented into smaller areas to optimize performance. Maximizing reliability within either a
fingerprint palm print system can be greatly improved by searching smaller data sets. While
fingerprints systems often partition repositories based upon finger number or pattern
classification, palm systems partition their repositories based upon the location of a friction
ridge area.

21
Latent examiners are very skilled in recognizing the portion of the hand from which a piece
of evidence or latent lift has been acquired. Searching only this region of a palm repository
rather than the entire database maximizes the reliability of a latent palm search.

Like fingerprints, the three main categories of palm matching techniques are minutiae-based
matching, correlation-based matching, and ridge-based matching. Minutiae-based matching,
the most widely used technique, relies on the minutiae points described above, specifically
the location, direction, and orientation of each point. Correlation –based matching involves
simply lining up the palm images and subtracting them to determine if the ridges in the two
palm images correspond. Ridge-based matching uses ridge pattern landmark features such as
sweat pores, spatial attributes and geometric characteristics of the ridges, and/or local texture
analysis, all of which are alternates to minutiae characteristic extraction. This method is a
difficulties associated with extracting minutiae from poor quality images.

The advantages and disadvantages of each approach vary based on the algorithm used and the
sensor implemented. Minutiae-based matching typically attains higher recognition accuracy,
although it performs poorly with low quality images and does not take advantages of textural
or visual features of the palm. Processing using minutiae-based techniques may also be time
consuming because of the time associated with minutiae extraction. Correlation-based
matching is often quicker to process but is less tolerant to elastic, rotational, and translational
variances and noise within the image. Some ridge-based matching characteristics are unstable
or require a high-resolution sensor to obtain quality images. The distinctiveness of the ridge-
based characteristic is significantly lower than the minutiae characteristics.

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CHAPTER 5

SYSTEM ACCURACY AND COMPARISON

5.1 SYSTEM ACCURACY

Accuracy or performance of biometric systems is measured with three factors:

5.1.1. False acceptance rate (FAR)

5.1.2. False rejection rate (FRR)

5.1.3. Equal Error Rate (EER)

5.1.1. FALSE ACCEPTANCE RATE

False acceptance rate is also known as Type I error. It measures the percentage of
impostors being incorrectly accepted as genuine user. Since almost all biometric systems aim
to achieve correct identity authentication, this number should be as low as possible.

5.1.2. FALSE REJECTION RATE

False rejection rate is also known as Type II error, this measures the percentage of
genuine users being incorrectly rejected. In order to minimize inconveniences (or
embarrassment) to the genuine user, this number should also be low.

5.1.3. EQUAL ERROR RATE

FAR and FRR are inversely related and a consolidation of the FAR and FFR is the
point at which accept and reject errors are equal. This is described as the equal error rate
(EER), sometimes also known as the cross-over error rate (CER). Low EER scores generally
indicate high levels of accuracy. This is illustrated in Figure 5.1. FAR and FFR can often be
adjusted by changing system parameters (rejection thresholds) or better control of conditions
under which systems are used (dust free, good lighting and so on).

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 Figure 5.1: System Accuracy Curve

5.2 COMPARISON OF BIOMETRIC TECHNOLOGIES

Biometrics Univer Uniqu Perman Collecta Perform Accepta Circumv

sality eness ence bility ance bility ention
Fingerprint M H H M H M H
Face H L M H L H L
Hand M M M H M M M
geometry
Iris H H H M H L H
Voice M L L M L H L

H-HIGH, M-MEDIUM, L-LOW

Table 5.1: Comparison of Biometrics Technology

In the above table 5.1, universality indicates how common the biometric is found in
each person; uniqueness indicates how well the biometric separates one person from the
other; permanence indicates how well the biometric resist the effect of aging; while
collectability measures how easy it is to acquire the biometric for processing. Performance
indicates the achievable accuracy, speed and robustness of the biometrics while acceptability
indicates the degree of acceptance of the technology by the public in their daily life and
circumvention indicates the level of difficulty to circumvent or fool the system into accepting
an impostor.

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CHAPTER 6

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

6.1 ADVANTAGES

FINGER PRINT RECOGNITION

 Fingerprint recognition equipment is relatively low-priced compared to other

biometric system.

 Fingerprints are unique to each finger of each individual and the ridge
arrangement remains permanent during one's lifetime.

PALM RECOGNITION

 Easy to capture.

 The major advantage is that most people can use it and as such, the acceptance
rate is good.

 Believed to be a highly stable pattern over the adult lifespan.

6.2 DISADVANTAGES

FINGER PRINT RECOGNITION

 Some people have damaged or eliminated fingerprints.

 Vulnerable to noise and distortion brought on by dirt and twists.

PALM RECOGNITION
 Use requires some training.

 System requires a large amount of physical space.

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CHAPTER 7

APPLICATIONS

7.1 PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION

Finger print identification is the most nature and the most extensively used technique in
automatic personal identification based on biostatistics. However, automatic finger print
identification is mainly based on finger print detail. Palm print includes much more
information than the finger print. It is accordingly used to compensate finger print
deficiency.

7.2 PALM PRINT IN DIAGNOSIS

Using the palm print to diagnose certain diseases is an asset of Chinese traditional
medicine. This method was formed after thousands years of clinical practice. Not only
can it be used to diagnose physical disease, it can also be used for diagnosis of mental
disease.

7.3 BLOOD RELATION IDENTIFICATION

Past research has demonstrated that the epidermal ridge patterns are under genetic
influence. The hereditary basis of dermal patterns has been studied, which has since been
confirmed by numerous genetic studies. A high degree of similarity of dermatoglyphic
traits has been found between monozygotic twins, whereas considerably less agreement
exits between dizygotic twins. These observations have been utilized diagnostically in
determining zygosity of twins.

7.4 SELECTION OF ATHLETES

Dermatoglyphic studies in the field of sport at home and abroad has proved that
dermatoglyphics can be regarded as a new genetic reference index in selecting athletes.
Many researchers divide athletes into groups according their achievements and compare
between athlete groups and the general population to find differences

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CHAPTER 8

BIOMETRIC SYSTEM AND DESIGN ANALYSIS

8.1 LAYOUT DESIGN ANALYSIS

This chapter is focuses on the aspects common to all the biometric recognition systems,
including the input data (biometrics images, and person meta data) and output (scores) of
these systems. This leads to a focus on user and group level performance.

This brings together aspects of statistics and machine learning to provide a comprehensive
guide to evaluate, interpret and understand biometric data. This professional book naturally
leads to topics including data mining and prediction, widely applied to other fields but not
rigorously to biometrics.

8.2 LAYOUT DESIGN SCREENSHOT

The design with functionalities is being shown in this section: -

Figure 8.1: User Interface

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Figure 8.2: Binary Thinning

Figure 8.3: Region Of Interest

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Figure 8.4 After Removing Spikes

Figure 8.5 Minutiae Extraction

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Figure 8.6 Real Minutiae

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CHAPTER 9

CONCLUSION

Biometric is an emerging area with many opportunities for growth. Biometrics is widely
being used because of its user friendliness, flexibility in specifying required security level and
long term stability. The technology will continue to improve and challenges such as
interoperability solved through standardization. This will lead to increase in the market
adoption rate and the technology will proliferate. Possibly in the near future, you will not
have to remember PINs and passwords and keys in your bags or pockets will be things of the
past.

Friction ridge skin on fingers and palms has been purportedly known to be a unique physical
characteristic of an individual that does not change over time and can be used as a person’s
“seal” or “signature” since ancient times. With the high and growing demand for reliable
person recognition in modern era, fingerprint recognition has become one of the most
successful solutions that achieves high recognition accuracy, ease of use, and high
throughput. Fingerprints are now routinely collected not only from apprehended criminals,
but also for the purpose of border crossing, entrance to amusement parks, and accessing
laptops and mobile phones. Fingerprint recognition technology enables authorities to find
suspect(s) involved in a crime and check the background of government job applicants.

A summary of our contributions is listed below.

 Persistence of fingerprints

 Fingerprint modeling

 Latent fingerprint enhancement

 Fingerprint obfuscation

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CHAPTER 10

FUTURE SCOPE

The future of biometrics holds great promise for law enforcement applications, as well for
private industry uses. Biometrics’ future will include e-commerce applications for extra
security on the checkout page, and biometrics will guard against unauthorized access to cars
and cell phones. In the future, biometric technology will further develop 3-D infrared facial
recognition access control, real-time facial recognition passive surveillance, and visitor
management authentication systems. Already A4Vision, a provider of 3-D facial scanning
and identification software uses specialized algorithms to interpret the traditional 2-D camera
image and transfer it into a 3-D representation of a registered face. This makes it almost
impossible to deceive the biometric system with still photos or other images. Strengthening
existing biometric innovations for future growth all of these security innovations will make
biometric technology more accurate and make its usage more widespread.

Fingerprint recognition research presented here can be further advanced as follows:

 A statistical analysis of impostor match scores needs to be conducted to determine the
temporal tendency of the impostor match scores and the false acceptance rate of the
fingerprint matchers.
 Fingerprint orientation field modeling should be extended by integrating arch-like
global orientation field in the model and designing a convex objective function for
fast model fitting.
 Latent fingerprint enhancement algorithm can be further improved by utilizing a
fingerprint-specific model in the orientation field estimation.
 Restoration and matching algorithms for altered fingerprints that can handle severe
distortion need to be developed.

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CHAPTER 11
REFERENCES

1. S. Prabhakar, S. Pankanti, and A. K. Jain, “Biometric Recognition: Security and

Privacy Concerns”, IEEE Security and Privacy Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 33-42,
2003.

2. Jain, A. K.; Ross, Arun; Prabhakar, Salil (January 2004), "An introduction to
biometric recognition", IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video
Technology 14th (1): 4–20, doi:10.1109/TCSVT.2003.818349

3. N. K. Ratha, J. H. Connell, and R. M. Bolle, "Enhancing security and privacy in

biometrics-based authentication systems," IBM systems Journal, vol. 40, pp. 614-634,
2001.

4. A. Jain et al: BIOMETRICS: Personal Identification in NetworkedSociety, Kluwer

Academic Publishers, 1999, ISBN0-7923-8345-1.

5. M.Pantic and L.J.M. Rothkrantz, 'Towards an Affect-Sensitive Multimodal Human-

Computer Interaction '. In: Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 91, no. 9, pp. 1370-1390,
September 2003

6. A. Mehrabian, “Communication without words,” Psychol. Today, vol. 2, no. 4, pp.

53–56, 1968.

7. Jain, A., Bolle, R. and Pankanti S. (1999). BIOMETRICS: Personal Identification in

Networked Society. Kluwer Academic Publishers.

8. http:// www.biometrics.org/

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Note:

1. No coding to be presented in report.

2. The soft copy of report and code to be copied in CD and pasted in back
cover of report.
3. The title of Project and students name to be written on CD.
4. Two copies of report to be submitted in department in hard binding.

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