Fingerprint template generation, verification and identification system
AssigneeSymbol Technologies, Inc.
InventorsSanjeev Kumar Biswas, Narayan Nambudiri
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system to generate a template of a fingerprint input image is described. The system provides for smoothing the input image, forming a binary image from it, and further processing the binary image to extract the minutia of the fingerprint. The minutiae are stored in the template, in the form of locations of each minutia in relation to all other minutiae. The system includes optional identification and verification steps, which compare the template generated according to the system with templates stored in a fingerprint database.
Claims26
A method for fingerprint recognition, comprising the steps of:
- providing a machine readable input fingerprint image;
- smoothing the input fingerprint image to remove noise;
- binarizing the smoothed input fingerprint image to form a binary image;
- processing the binary image to identify minutiae of the fingerprint image;
- superimposing a mask over portions of the binary image;
- averaging a first coordinate of pixels describing the image features along line segments within the mask, each of the line segments having a constant second coordinate;
- forming a sequence of averaged first coordinate values for the line segments;
- identifying minutiae from the sequence of averaged first coordinate values;
- and
- generating a template describing the minutiae.
A system for analyzing fingerprints, comprising:
- a software module configured to receive an input fingerprint image, the input fingerprint image having first portions representing fingerprint ridges and second portions representing fingerprint furrows, the first portions contain one of dark and light pixels, and the second portions contain another of dark and light pixels, the software module being further configured to generate a binary image from the input fingerprint image, extract a set of minutiae from the binary image, superimpose a mask over segments of the binary image, average a first coordinate of dark pixels along line segments within the mask, the first coordinate changing in value and each of the line segments having a second coordinate that is unchanging, generate a sequence of averaged first coordinate values for the line segments, and detect the presence of minutiae from the sequence of averaged first coordinate values;
- and
- a memory module configured to store a template of location information of the set of minutiae.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.