Biometric Authentication Systems

Abstract

Biometrics is the science of recognizing the identity of a person based on the physical or behavioral attributes of the individual such as fingerprints, palmprint, face, voice, iris and gait. With the increasing need for robust human recognition techniques in sensitive applications such as secure access control, international border crossing and law enforcement, biometrics has emerged itself as a feasible technology that can be integrated into large-scale identity management systems. Biometric systems operate under the premise that many of the physical or behavioral characteristics of humans are distinctive to an individual, and that they can be reliably acquired via appropriately designed sensors and represented in a numerical format that lends itself to automatic decision making in the context of identity management. Thus, these systems may be viewed as pattern recognition engines that can be incorporated in diverse markets. Every part of human body is unique and if we can consistently capture the specified area or trait, efficient biometric authentication system can be built. With the advancement in technology sensors for variety of biometrics are available. We have fingerprint, handwritten signatures, palmprint, face, voice as conventional biometric traits, because of advance sensors we can have 3D face and hand geometry, finger-knuckle print, ear geometry, facial thermogram, gait, odor, DNA, retinal scan as emerging traits.