Biometric authentication apparatus, biometric authentication method, and program

• US 20110188710A1
• Filed: 01/21/2011
• Published: 08/04/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/29/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Muquit, Mohammad Abdul
• Granted Patent: US 8,831,296 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/115
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/00 Pattern recognition
• 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 40/1347 Preprocessing; Feature extraction
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/14 Vascular patterns

Abstract

There is provided a biometric authentication apparatus including a vein image extraction unit for extracting a vein image showing positions of veins from an image including veins in a finger portion, a vein image dividing unit for dividing the extracted vein image into a plurality of partial regions, a vein pixel counting unit for counting the number of pixels corresponding to the veins in each of the divided partial regions, a vector generation unit for arranging, in a predetermined order, count results of the respective partial regions, and generating a vein distribution vector, which is a numerical sequence representing a degree of distribution of the veins in the vein image, and an authentication unit for authenticating the vein distribution vector generated by the vector generation unit, based on a registered vein distribution vector, which is a vein distribution vector registered in advance.

Claims

1. A biometric authentication apparatus comprising:

a vein image extraction unit for emitting a light having a predetermined wavelength to a finger portion and extracting a vein image showing positions of veins from an image including veins in the obtained finger portion;

a vein image dividing unit for dividing the vein image extracted by the vein image extraction unit into a plurality of partial regions;

a vein pixel counting unit for counting the number of pixels corresponding to the veins in each of the partial regions divided by the vein image dividing unit;

a vector generation unit for arranging, in a predetermined order, count results of the respective partial regions provided by the vein pixel counting unit, and generating a vein distribution vector, which is a numerical sequence representing a degree of distribution of the veins in the vein image; and

an authentication unit for authenticating the vein distribution vector generated by the vector generation unit, based on a registered vein distribution vector, which is a vein distribution vector registered in advance.

2. The biometric authentication apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein while one of the vein distribution vector generated by the vector generation unit and the registered vein distribution vector is repeatedly shifted by a predetermined number of elements, the authentication unit calculates a degree of similarity between the vein distribution vector generated by the vector generation unit and the registered vein distribution vector.

3. The biometric authentication apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising:

an image correction unit for correcting the vein image by performing at least one of a parallel moving processing and a rotation processing on the vein image extracted by the vein image extraction unit,

wherein the image correction unit performs a principal component analysis on the not-yet-corrected vein image, and rotates the not-yet-corrected vein image such that a direction of a first principal component is in parallel with a side in a longitudinal direction of the vein image, and

the image correction unit calculates a barycenter of a distribution of pixels corresponding to the positions of the veins in the not-yet-corrected vein image, and moves the not-yet-corrected vein image in parallel such that the barycenter matches a central position of the vein image.

4. The biometric authentication apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the vein image dividing unit divides a predetermined region of the vein image including a central position of the vein image into a plurality of partial regions.

5. The biometric authentication apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the vector generation unit arranges the count results in order from a partial region located at a corner of the vein image.

6. The biometric authentication apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the vector generation unit arranges the count results in order from a partial region including a central position of the vein image.

7. The biometric authentication apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the authentication unit performs an authentication processing based on an element of the vein distribution vector corresponding to a partial region including a central position of the vein image.

8. A biometric authentication method comprising the steps of:

emitting a light having a predetermined wavelength to a finger portion and extracting a vein image showing positions of veins from an image including veins in the finger portion from which the image has been obtained;

dividing the extracted vein image into a plurality of partial regions;

counting the number of pixels corresponding to the veins in each of the generated partial regions;

arranging, in a predetermined order, count results of the respective partial regions, and generating a vein distribution vector, which is a numerical sequence representing a degree of distribution of the veins in the vein image; and

authenticating the vein distribution vector generated in the step of generating the vector, based on a registered vein distribution vector, which is a vein distribution vector registered in advance.

9. A program causing a computer to realize:

a vein image extraction function for emitting a light having a predetermined wavelength to a finger portion and extracting a vein image showing positions of veins from an image including veins in the finger portion from which the image has been obtained;

a vein image dividing function for dividing the vein image extracted by the vein image extraction function into a plurality of partial regions;

a vein pixel counting function for counting the number of pixels corresponding to the veins in each of the partial regions divided by the vein image dividing function;

a vector generation function for arranging, in a predetermined order, count results of the respective partial regions provided by the vein pixel counting function, and generating a vein distribution vector, which is a numerical sequence representing a degree of distribution of the veins in the vein image; and

an authentication function for authenticating the vein distribution vector generated by the vector generation function, based on a registered vein distribution vector, which is a vein distribution vector registered in advance.