Personal identification device and method

• US 20080008358A1
• Filed: 09/05/2007
• Published: 01/10/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/06/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Miyatake, Takafumi, Miura, Naoto, Nagasaka, Akio
• Granted Patent: US 7,599,523 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/116
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/10 Image acquisition document image scanning and transmission H04N1/00; control of digital cameras H04N23/60
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/10 Human or animal bodies, e.g. vehicle occupants or pedestrians; Body parts, e.g. hands
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/12 Fingerprints or palmprints
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/1312 direct reading, e.g. contactless acquisition
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/1341 Sensing with light passing through the finger
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/14 Vascular patterns

Abstract

The invention aims at providing personal identification in environments where non-contact is required, with high accuracy even though using a finger vein pattern images unclear and susceptible to positional deviations, wherein it has: a means for acquiring finger vein patterns without contact; a means for carrying out rotational correction using the outline of a finger as a method of taking out a vein pattern contained in the acquired image; a means for normalizing the position of the finger image with reference to the fingertip; a means for acquiring an overall vein pattern statistically by repetitively tracking regions of dark luminance intensities for a desired length from a desired position in the image; a matching means for comparing regions where vein patterns manifest vivid features; and a means for independent matching of subregions and evaluating positional deviations where matching is recognized.

Claims

1. A personal identification system comprising:

a first identification device using vein pattern information,

a second identification device using at least one of fingerprint information, iris information, voice information, handwriting information and face information, and

a processing device which performs identification by using the information obtained from the first identification device and the second identification device.

2. The personal identification system according to claim 1, wherein said second identification device uses fingerprint information for identification, and wherein said first identification device and said second identification device are integrated.

3. The personal identification system according to claim 1, wherein said second identification device uses handwriting information, and wherein said second identification device has a handwriting input tablet with a handwriting input pen.

4. The personal identification system according to claim 1, wherein said first identification device has an interface having a light source and a camera which captures light transmitted through a hand to form an image, and wherein said first identification device has an image processing unit which extracts a vein pattern from said image, and compares the vein pattern with a registered vein pattern.

5. The personal identification system according to claim 4, wherein said interface further comprises a slot-shaped gap for accommodating at least one finger, and said light source and said camera are arranged opposite each other with the slot-shaped gap provided therebetween.

6. The personal identification system according to claim 1, wherein said first identification device has a light source, a camera which captures light transmitted through a set finger to generate an image, and an image processing unit which extracts a blood vessel pattern from the image captured by the camera for personal identification, and wherein the image processing unit extracts a finger outline, determines an approximated straight line of the finger outline, and rotationally corrects the image so that the approximated straight line of the finger outline is horizontal to an edge of the image.

7. The personal identification system according to claim 1, wherein said first identification device has a light source, a camera which captures light transmitted through a set finger to generate an image, and an image processing unit which extracts a blood vessel pattern from the image captured by the camera for personal identification, and wherein the image processing unit sets a tracking point at a center of the image, detects pixels having a greatest difference in intensity values as boundary pixels by shifting the tracking point in both directions parallel to the edge of the image in a direction of a finger width, and tracks a finger outline from the boundary pixels to extract the finger outline.

8. The personal identification system according to claim 1, wherein said first identification device has a light source, a camera which captures a light transmitted through a hand, an image processing unit which extracts a vein pattern from an image captured by the camera and executes the personal identification by classifying pixels in the vein pattern into three categories, the three categories including a first category in which no vein pattern is supposed to be present, a second category in which the vein pattern is highly likely to be present and a third category which is ambiguous in that a vein pattern may or may not be present, and executing the personal identification using the pixels which are classified into the first category in which no vein pattern is supposed to be present and the second category in which the vein pattern is highly likely to present.