Iris recognition systems and methods of using a statistical model of an iris for authentication

A method of using iris data for authentication, comprising:

• translating, by a biometric encoder, an image of the iris acquired by a sensor into a rectangular representation of the iris, the rectangular representation comprising a plurality of rows corresponding to a plurality of circular circumferences within the iris;
• extracting an intensity profile from at least one of the plurality of rows;
• determining, by the biometric encoder, a non-stationary component of the intensity profile;
• obtaining, by the biometric encoder, a stationary component of the intensity profile by removing the non-stationary component from the intensity profile, the stationary component modeled as a stochastic process;
• removing, by the biometric encoder, at least a noise component from the stationary component using at least one of auto-regressive (AR), moving average (MA) or auto-regressive moving average (ARMA) based modeling of the noise component, to produce at least a non-linear background signal;
• and
• combining the non-stationary component and the at least the non-linear background signal, to produce a biometric template for authenticating the person.