Personal authentication system and method thereof

• US 20030123710A1
• Filed: 11/27/2002
• Published: 07/03/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Semiconductor Components Industries LLC (ON Semiconductor Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sanyo Electric Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Nakazawa, Tsutomu, Takei, Youji, Kiyama, Masanobu, Hamakawa, Kouichi
• Granted Patent: US 7,106,902 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/115
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 9/257 electronically G07C9/26 takes precedence

Abstract

A personal authentication system of this invention has a card reader, in which a bar code reading device for reading a two-dimensional barcode containing personal data, a CMOS image sensor for producing face data by photographing the face of a person, and a fingerprint reading device for producing fingerprint data by reading the fingerprint of the person are assembled as one unit. A personal computer performs a projection transform and a brightness correction to the barcode read by the card reader for acquiring accurate data. Then, the personal data, the face data, and the fingerprint data are compared with database for authenticating the person. Therefore, this invention achieves more accurate personal authentication and leads to improved security.

Claims

1. An authentication system for authenticating a subject comprising:

a bar code reading device reading a two-dimensional bar code of the subject, the barcode containing personal data of the subject;

a digital camera capturing a facial image of the subject to provide facial data of the subject; and

a finger print reading device reading a finger print of the subject to provide finger print data,

wherein an authentication of the subject is performed based on the personal data, the facial data and the fingerprint data.

2. The authentication system of claim 1, further comprising a host computer receiving the personal data, the facial data, and the fingerprint data and performing a decoding processing on the personal data contained in the two-dimensional barcode.

3. The authentication system of claim 2, wherein the host computer compares personal facial data and personal fingerprint data of the personal data reproduced by the decoding processing with the facial data provided by the digital camera and the fingerprint data provided by the fingerprint reading device, respectively.

4. A method of authenticating a subject comprising:

reading a two-dimensional bar code of the subject that contains personal data of the subject;

capturing a facial image of the subject to provide facial data of the subject;

reading a finger print of the subject to provide finger print data of the subject; and

performing an authentication of the subject based on the personal data, the facial data and the finger print data.

5. The method of authenticating a subject of claim 4, wherein the reading of the two-dimensional bar code comprises:

correcting a distortion of an image of the two-dimensional bar code obtained from an area sensor by a projection transform;

correcting brightness imbalance of the bar code image; and

decoding the two-dimensional bar code based on image data of the two-dimensional bar code after the distortion correction and the brightness correction.

6. The method of authenticating a subject of claim 5, wherein the distortion correction of the bar code image by the projection transform comprises acquiring correction data for correcting the distortion of the bar code image based on coordinates of four corner points of a square photographically captured by the area sensor, and correcting the distortion of the bar code image by the projection transform based on the correction data.

7. The method of authenticating a subject of claim 5, wherein the brightness correction comprises dividing the image of the two-dimensional bar code into a plurality of blocks, and correcting the brightness imbalance for each of the blocks.

8. The personal authentication method of claim 7, wherein the brightness correction for each of the blocks comprises determining a block standard value based on a brightness distribution among pixel elements in said each of the blocks, and determining a standard value for the whole image based on a brightness distribution of the whole image, the brightness correction for each of the blocks being performed based on the block standard values and the standard value of the whole image.