Proceedings of IMCIC - ICSIT 2016
Implementation of Fingerprint Recognition System on FPGA
Prof S Gayathri
Dept of E&C, SJCE
Mysore, Karnataka, India
sgmurthy_65@yahoo.com
and
Dr V Sridhar
Principal, PESCE
Mandya, Karnataka, India
venusridhar@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
The performance of fingerprint recognition system depends on
the minutiae present in the fingerprint image. In most of the
applications, acquired fingerprint images are of medium quality.
This may not precisely extract minutiae and thereby pulls down
the performance of the fingerprint recognition system. To
enhance the performance, fingerprint images have to be
processed before extracting minutiae. Proposed fingerprint
recognition system comprises of fingerprint recognition process
with minutiae matcher. It provides better performance in
comparison with the existing system. Number of stages in
fingerprint recognition process depends on the methodology
adopted by the designer to improve the quality of the fingerprint
image.
One of the key contributions of the proposed system is the
reduced computational complexity and processing time due to
fast and improved thinning algorithm. Due to scalable hardware
resources supported by Field Programmable Gate Arrays
(FPGA) further improvement in the processing time is possible.
Validation of the fingerprint recognition system is carried out in
terms of false acceptance rate (FAR) and false rejection rate
(FRR). State-of-the-art fingerprint recognition system with
improved recognition rate is implemented on Virtex-5 FPGA
development board. The system is validated for 500 samples of
medium quality fingerprint images generated by considering
people between age 5-65 using optical scanner. Further, the
results obtained from hardware design are compared with that
of earlier work implemented on different platforms.
Keywords: Performance, hardware, minutiae, recognition,
process, matcher, fingerprint image.
1. INTRODUCTION
The most critical step in automatic fingerprint recognition
system is to extract minutiae from the input fingerprint image.
Minutiae extraction relies on the quality of the input fingerprint
image. In order to ensure the success of an automatic fingerprint
recognition system, the quality of input fingerprint image must
be good. But in most cases the quality of the acquired fingerprint
images are of poor quality. Hence it is essential to incorporate
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image enhancement technique to improve the quality of the
fingerprint image.
The hierarchical approach of realizing fingerprint recognition
system is as shown in Figure 1. It consists of a fingerprint
recognition process and a minutiae matcher. Fingerprint
recognition process comprises of cascaded blocks of pre-
processing, feature extraction and post processing stages. It
converts the input fingerprint image into a set of minutiae, stored
as template for future matching purpose. The minutiae matcher
provides the acceptance / rejection of fingerprint under test by
comparing it with the templates stored in database based on the
threshold.
Fingerprint Recognition System
Fingerprint Minutiae
recognition process Matcher
Fingerprint Recognition Process
Pre Feature Post
processing extraction processing
Figure 1. Hierarchy of Fingerprint recognition system
The performance of the fingerprint recognition system is
measured in terms of false acceptance rate (FAR) and false
rejection rate (FRR). Comparison of the parameters are carried
out by considering fingerprint recognition process with and
without pre-processing, with and without post processing and
with feature extraction alone. Database with 500 samples
generated by considering people between ages 5-65 irrespective
of gender is considered for evaluation.
2. RELATED WORK
The performance of the recognition system heavily depends on
the extraction of minutiae from the fingerprint image. Adaptive
normalization based on block processing ensures reliable
fingerprint texture region of the given fingerprint image even if
the image is of poor quality [1].
A low cost FPGA implementation of an image normalization
system which uses a fixed point representation to handle all the
data processing is discussed in [2]. A fast fingerprint
 Proceedings of IMCIC - ICSIT 2016

enhancement algorithm, which adaptively improves the clarity The input to the fingerprint recognition process will be the raw
of ridge and valley structures of input fingerprint image based fingerprint image captured from the optical scanner and the
on estimated local ridge orientation and frequency, is proposed output will be the template consisting of real minutiae.
in [3]. The approaches/ methods adapted for each block of fingerprint
Two different forms of ridge extraction algorithms are [5] recognition process are
implemented on FPGA. The first one by microblaze soft- Normalization: Adaptive local mean and variance approach
processor, and the second one based on a hardware coprocessor. Orientation field estimation: Local ridge detail method
Hardware coprocessor shows the higher performance. Filtering: Direct gray scale filtering based on Gabor function
The quality of fingerprint is enhanced by using filter. Gabor Binarization: Adaptive thresholding approach
filter captures both local orientation and frequency information Thinning: Improved fast thinning approach
from a fingerprint image. The computational complexity Minutiae extraction: Crossing number method
increases as the size of images increases. Also number of Gabor False minutiae elimination: Euclidean distance method
pre-filters and post filters increases [7]. Input-Fingerprint image
In classical thinning algorithm [9], the basic operation on each
pixel depends on the 8 neighboring points. All the pixels in one
image are handled serially and consume a lot of memory for
storage. To minimize memory requirement, few designers opted
for parallelism in thinning algorithm.
Modified version of the thinning algorithm [10], removes all
pixels of the image except those pixels that belong to the
skeleton of the input fingerprint image.
Fingerprint image enhancement through reconfigurable Output- Minutiae
hardware accelerator is presented in [12]. It is based on
hardware time multiplexing to reduce silicon area by 50% in Figure 2. Block diagram of Fingerprint recognition process
comparison to the general purpose microcontroller system.
i) Normalization: The input is a 8-bit gray scale fingerprint
Fingerprint image processing through reconfigurable hardware
image, represented by I(x,y) of size N x M. I (i, j) represents
is implemented on Virtex-4 FPGA development board.
the intensity of the pixel at the ith row and jth column. Mean (M)
Hardware-software co-design technique proposed in [15]
and variance (VAR) of the i n p u t f i n g e r p r i n t image
reduces execution time and enhances the performance.
are computed u s i n g E q . ( 1 ) a n d E q . ( 2 ) . The
Minutiae extraction using modified ridge following algorithm is
normalized image G (i, j) [3] [4] is represented by Eq.(3).
presented in [16]. The algorithm is implemented on the
resource-constrained SoCs.
To find termination and bifurcation, fingerprint image has to be
(1)
processed in several stages. Number of stages before minutiae
extraction depends on the applications in which it is used. The
processing involved in [17] differs slightly from earlier work (2)
depending on the algorithm employed.
A Field programmable gate array has large logic capacity and
memory resources. Hence implementation of fingerprint
recognition system on FPGA [9] is a good choice among
various available platforms.
With the development of reconfigurable computing there is a
(3)
tremendous change in the Biometric technology. It adds a new
degree of freedom in the development of electronic systems Where
[20]. However, the physical implementation of automatic M0 and VAR0 are the desired mean and variance respectively.
fingerprint authentication system is still a challenging task. ii) Orientation Field Estimation: let be defined as the
Until now, only initial stages of biometric recognition algorithm
orientation field of a normalized fingerprint image. (i, j)
are tested.
represent the local ridge at pixel (i , j) . The main steps of the
3. METHODOLOGY
algorithm [6] are
The block diagram of fingerprint recognition process is as 1. Divide the normalized fingerprint image into blocks of size
shown in Figure 2. The typical arrangement involves cascaded w*w.
blocks of normalization, orientation field estimation, filtering, 2. Compute the gradients and at each pixel.
binarization, thinning, minutiae extraction and false minutiae 3. Estimate the local orientation using Eq.(4), Eq.(5) and Eq.(6).
elimination.

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 Proceedings of IMCIC - ICSIT 2016
(4)
(5)
(6)
iii) Filtering: Filter preserves the continuity of the ridge flow
pattern. It enhances the clarity of the ridge and valley structures
by eliminating noise. The general function of Gabor filter [7]
[8] is given by Eq. (7).
(7)
Where
θ- Ridge orientation with respect to vertical axis
ƒ0- Selected ridge frequency in xθ – direction
σx- Standard deviation of Gaussian function along xθ axis
σy - Standard deviation of Gaussian function along yθ axis
[x,y] – Oriented fingerprint image
[xθ, yθ]- Coordinates of [x,y] after a clockwise rotation of the
Cartesian axes by an angle of (90-θ)
ƒ- Reciprocal of the average inter-ridge distance K
σ- Standard deviation of 2 D normal (or Gaussian) distribution
G(x, y, θ, ƒ0) can be decomposed into two orthogonal parts as in
Eq.(8): GBP- Band-pass Gaussian function of x and ƒ0 , parallel
to the orientation θ and GLP - Low-pass Gaussian function of y,
perpendicular to the orientation θ.
(8)
iv) Binarization: The filtered fingerprint image is in 8-bit gray
scale format. It is converted into binary (1-bit) by selecting the
threshold. The pixel values which are above threshold will be
assigned to 1 (white) or else they will be assigned to 0 (black).
For 8-bit gray scale image the selection of threshold is as
follows: Threshold value is the mean of the filtered fingerprint
image for adaptive case. The threshold value for adaptive and
ideal case are given by Eq. (9) and Eq. (10) respectively.
For Adaptive: f(p) = 0, p < threshold
= 1, p ≥ threshold (9)
For Ideal: f(p) = 0, 0 ≤ p ≤ 127
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=1, 128 ≤ p ≤ 256 (10)
v) Thinning: The binarized fingerprint image is applied to
thinning block which reduces the ridge thickness to one pixel
wide. This process is carried out in two steps [11] [13] [14] by
considering 8- neighborhood pixels.
N(Pl)- Number of nonzero neighbors of P1. That is
N (P1) = P2 + P3 +……..+ P9 .
S (P1)- Number of 0-1 transition in the ordered sequence of p2,
p3….., p8, p9.
Step 1: It is applied to each border pixel in the binarized
fingerprint image under consideration. If one or more of the
conditions (a) through (d) of Eq. (11) are violated, the value of
the pixel is not changed.
a. 2 ≤N(P1)≤6,
b. S(P1)= 1,
c. P2*P4*P6=0,
d. P4*P6*P8=0, (11)
Step 2: Conditions (a) and (b) of Eq. (11) remain the same, but
conditions (c) and (d) are changed as in Eq. (12).
c′. P2*P4*p8=0,
d′. P2*P6*P8=0, (12)
vi) Minutiae Extraction: It is based on the crossing number
concept in which the connectivity of the pixels in the thinned
image is examined. To extract minutiae, consider a 3 x 3 matrix
from the thinned image. Scan the local neighborhood of each
ridge pixel in the selected 3 x 3 image. Then compute CN value
using (13). It is defined as half the sum of the differences
between pairs of adjacent pixels in the eight-neighbourhood
[18].The CN of a pixel P is given by Eq. (13).
(13)
Where Pi is the pixel value in the neighborhood of P. For a
pixel P, its eight neighbouring pixels are scanned in an anti-
clockwise direction. A pixel with a connectivity of 1
corresponds to an ending minutiae and a connectivity of 3 leads
to a bifurcation. For other values it is not a significant pixel.
vii) False Minutiae Elimination: False minutiae may be
introduced into the image due to noise, artifacts etc. The
existence of false minutiae increases both FAR and FRR of the
fingerprint recognition system. Therefore, false minutiae
elimination forms an important part of the fingerprint
recognition system.
False minutiae elimination uses Euclidean Distance
algorithm. The Euclidean distance between points p and q is the
length of the line segment connecting them (pq(bar) ). Let p =
(p1, p2,..., pn) and q = (q1, q2,..., qn) are two points in
Euclidean n-space, then the distance from p to q, or from q to p
is given by Eq. (14).
(14)
 Proceedings of IMCIC - ICSIT 2016
viii) Minutiae matcher: Fingerprint matchers can be minutiae
based, correlation-based or pattern based. Of the three minutiae
based matching is generally adapted for medium quality
images. Further minutiae-based matching employs global
approach to increase the accuracy since global approach
depends on the orientation of the fingerprint image.
Figure 3 depicts the matching of fingerprint image (template)
under test with that of stored fingerprint images (templates) in
the database. The decision will be to either accept or reject the
fingerprint image depending on the threshold.
Template (Database)
Template (Under test) Accept / Reject
Minutiae
matcher
Threshold
Figure 3. Minutiae matcher
4. METHODOLOGY
The size of fingerprint image is 248 × 292 and is in 8-bit gray
scale format. It is converted into text file and stored in a ROM.
These values are copied into the RAM for processing.
The mean of fingerprint image pixels is calculated and the
difference between each image pixel value and the mean is
obtained. These values are squared, accumulated and stored as
variance in RAM. The mean and variance are applied to the
p r o c e s s i n g b l o c k to get the normalized fingerprint
image.
The normalized image’s gradients in both x and y directions are
calculated and used to compute the orientation angle of the
image. The orientation process provides the horizontal and
vertical derivatives of the normalized image.
The output of orientation field estimation is stored in the
memory. The control unit takes the data from memory location
and sends it to the multiplication-accumulator (MAC) unit. The
coefficient values of the Gabor filter, which defines the oriented
fingerprint image is transferred to MAC unit. MAC unit
perform the matrix convolution operation. The convoluted
signal is transformed into a matrix format which is the filtered
image.
Filtered gray scale image is converted into a binary image
using an adaptive threshold. The binarized output is applied to
thinning block. Ridge thinning reduces the thickness till the
ridges are just one pixel broad. The thinned image thus
obtained f r o m process u t i l i z e s less memory.
Feature extraction is carried out using the Crossing Number
concept, by scanning the local neighborhood of each ridge pixel
in the image using a 3x3 window. False minutiae which results
during the processing will be removed by using Euclidean
distance algorithm. Finally the coefficients of real minutiae are
saved in a text file as templates.
The elements in the coefficients file will be very large.
Nonlinear operations are performed before loading the image
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into target FPGA device (Virtex-5). For non-linear filter
operations, consider a 3X3 matrix of processed fingerprint
image. Pad zeroes in one line around the matrix so that it
becomes 5 x 5 matrix. Start the neighbouring and sliding
operations for the image matrix and save the linear array in a
proper format for coefficient file.
5. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The individual blocks of fingerprint recognition process and
minutiae matcher are coded using verilog HDL and
implemented on Virtex-5 FPGA development board. The
outputs of each block are synchronized with the 100 MHz clock
input. The outputs are in signed decimal values. The input
fingerprint image is stored in the ROM initially. The outputs
from the individual blocks are at a high impedance state until
the image is copied to the RAM block. At the rising edge of the
clock, the image is copied into RAM for processing.
The performance of the fingerprint recognition system is carried
out by taking the fingerprint images from the database of 500
fingerprint images. The fingerprint image is represented by 248
pixels × 292 pixels, with 8-bit gray format. The parameters for
validation of fingerprint recognition system are processing time,
power consumption and performance.
(A) Processing time: The processing time of fingerprint
recognition process/system implemented with software and
hardware platforms are listed in Table 1.
Table 1. Processing time
Process / System MatLab (µs) FPGA (ns)
Fingerprint recognition process 1.745 42.457
Fingerprint recognition system 3.02 71.774
It is found that for FPGA implementation (Virtex-5 target
device) the processing time is in nanoseconds and for MatLab
implementation it is in microseconds.
(B) Power consumption: Table 2 depicts the power
consumption of fingerprint recognition process/ system. It is
evident from the Table 2 that there will be more leakage power
than the dynamic power.
Leakage power can be reduced by optimizing the routing of the
various modules in the fingerprint recognition process/ system.
Small change in routing may cause drastic changes in the
placement of modules, hence the respective change in the
speed.
Table 2. Power consumption
Process / Power (W) Total Dynamic Leakage
Fingerprint recognition 4.056 0.06 3.996
process
Fingerprint recognition 1.232 0.045 1.187
system
(C)Performance evaluation: Commonly used performance
metrics are the False Acceptance Rate (FAR) and the False
Rejection Rate (FRR). FAR and FRR are calculated based on
the matching score.
 Proceedings of IMCIC - ICSIT 2016

The matching is carried in two phases namely enrollment phase
and recognition phase. During enrollment phase the individual
fingerprints are acquired using optical scanner. The minutiae of
the fingerprints are obtained using the proposed fingerprint
recognition process and are saved as corresponding templates in
the database.
For a particular fingerprint image, number of terminations are
24 and number of bifurcations are 12. During recognition phase,
the fingerprint to be recognized is processed and corresponding
minutiae in the form of template is compared to the template(s)
in the database by a minutiae matcher. The decision will be
accepted (match) or rejected (no match) depending on the
threshold.
the recognition rate lies behind the with post processing. With
fingerprint recognition process (3 stages in cascade), false
minutiae drops by 33% and true minutiae drops only by 2%.
With only feature extraction (without pre-processing and post
processing), the recognition rate falls in the range 70-78%
which is very low. Hence it is essential to incorporate the pre-
processing and post processing stages to increase the
recognition rate.
With and without post processing
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FAR,FRR, in %
i) False Acceptance rate: It is defined as a case wherein the 100
system incorrectly authorizes a unauthorized person, as 80
60
authorized person due to incorrect minutiae. The FAR is 40
normally expressed as a percentage. It is given by 20
FAR = 100 x False Positive / ( False Positive + True Negative) 0
FAR is determined by considering fingerprint images of

100
30

60

90
10
20

40
50

70
80
0
different persons / images of different fingers of the same
person. Threshold in %
ii) False Rejection Rate: It is defined as a case wherein the
system incorrectly rejects access to an authorized person, as
FAR without FAR with
unauthorized person due to incorrect minutiae. The FRR is
normally expressed as a percentage. It is given by FRR without FRR with
FRR = 100 xFalse Negative / ( False Negative + True Positve)
FRR is determined by considering images of same finger of the Figure 5. FAR, FRR for post processing
same person at different instants.
Table 3 provides the comparison of the proposed work with the
earlier one in terms of FAR and FRR. It is evident that the
Without and with pre-processing proposed work on Virtex-V FPGA development board, both
FAR and FRR reduces
120 Table 3. Comparison of FAR and FRR
100
FAR,FRR in %

80 Platform FAR FRR

60 C Militello [21] Virtex II 1.3% 7.3%
40
20 Almudena, Lindoso [22] Virtex IV 5.58% 5.12%
0 Proposed work Virtex V 1.18% 2.345%
5 15 25 35 45 55 65 75 85 95
6. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE
Threshold in %
Fingerprint recognition process / system is implemented using
FAR without FAR with the state-of-the-art technology on Virtex-5 FPGA. Comparison
FRR without FRR with of the processing time of hardware implementation is carried
out with that of MatLab implementation. The key contributions
of the proposed work are minimal utilization of the available
Figure 4. FAR, FRR for pre-processing hardware resource, low processing time and low power
consumption. In addition the accuracy obtained is satisfactory
The performance of the proposed work is carried out for 500
samples (left hand thumb impressions) from the database. To for medium quality images acquired through optical scanner.
evaluate FRR matching of fingerprint image of same person, Future enhancement for improvement in terms of performance
FAR of different persons are considered between the ages 5-65 and processing time in the proposed process are required for
irrespective of gender. Figure 4 and Figure 5 depicts the low quality fingerprint images.
variation of FAR and FRR with pre-processing and post
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