Automatic Contactless Mobile Fingerprinting System

Abstract

Increased security requirements relevant to the worldwide war against terrorism and cyber crime recently prompted the development of biometric systems for use in identifying individuals at commercial facilities, border crossings, airports, and government building access points. Fingerprinting is one of the oldest means of biometric identification; however, the current methods of fingerprint capture carry inherent limitations on image quality. The current study describes the development of a novel, mobile, and contactless fingerprinting system. This system combines the advantages of contactless fingerprinting with the ability to create a digital map of the blood vessels within a finger for use as a second data set for use in biometric identification. The distinguishing feature of the system is the use of line scanning technology which allows for the acquisition of nearly distortion-less 180 or “nail-to-nail” fingerprints. The study describes a fully automatic system and assesses the technical aspects of this novel device. We describe the design of the subsystems: adaptive lighting, optical image formation, power management methods, wireless data transfer, and subsystem synchronization techniques. We will also discuss the system’s embedded software, which synchronizes the operation of all subsystems and allows for fingerprint visualization on an onboard touch