Apparatus, method, and program for personal identification

• US 7,174,032 B2
• Filed: 10/31/2002
• Issued: 02/06/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/08/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Aida, Kazuhiko, Takiguchi, Kiyoaki, Ohkubo, Masashi, Nakamura, Takaaki
• Primary Examiner(s): Bella, Matthew C.
• Assistant Examiner(s): AZARIAN, SEYED H
• Application Number:
  US10/284,314
• Publication Number:
  US 20030086592A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,559 Days
• Field of Search: 382/107, 382/108, 382/115, 382/116, 382/140, 382/168, 382/203, 382/209, 382/219, 382/274, 382/305, 382/321, 382/259, 368/127, 340/573.4, 356/71, 235/380, 704/246
• 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 40/14 Vascular patterns

Abstract

An apparatus and a method for personal identification include an image pickup section for picking up an image of a blood vessel pattern of a wrist, a storage unit for storing in advance an image of a blood vessel pattern of a certain person as a registered image, and a control section (CPU) for the computation of degrees of similarity according to data differences between the image of the blood vessel pattern picked up by the image pickup section and the registered image to determine identification according to the relationship between the computed degrees of similarity and a threshold, thereby eliminating the need to carry out processing by a characteristic extraction section or the like.

Claims

1. An apparatus for personal identification comprising:

a storage unit for storing an image of a wrist blood vessel pattern of a certain person as a registered image;

an image pickup section for picking up an image of a wrist blood vessel pattern of a human body;

an identification section for computing a degree of similarity according to a data difference between the image of the wrist blood vessel pattern picked up by the image pickup section and the registered image to carry out identification according to the relationship between the degree of similarity and a predetermined threshold;

a positioning section enabling positioning of a wrist thereon; and

a recessed section formed in a recessed shape on a top surface of the positioning section, wherein the image pickup section is located on a bottom surface of the recessed section, such that the wrist blood vessel pattern is not distorted at the location of the image pickup station when the wrist is positioned in contact with the positioning section.

2. An apparatus for personal identification according to claim 1, wherein the relative position between the image of the wrist blood vessel pattern and the registered image is changed within a predetermined range to obtain degrees of similarity for a plurality of the relative positions respectively, and wherein the identification section carries out identification by comparing each of the degrees of similarity computed for the plurality of the relative positions and the predetermined threshold.

3. An apparatus for personal identification according to claim 2, wherein when the identification is successful with the degree of similarity computed for one of the plurality of the relative positions, computation of the degree of similarity by the identification section is stopped.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the positioning section and recessed section are provided in a chair armrest.

4. A method for personal identification comprising the steps of:

storing, in advance, as a registered image, an image formed by extracting spatial frequency components within a predetermined range from an image of a wrist blood vessel pattern of a certain person;

picking up an image of a wrist blood vessel pattern of a person to be identified; and

forming an identification image by extracting spatial frequency components within the predetermined range from the picked up image of the wrist blood vessel pattern to determine whether the person to be identified and the certain person are the same, according to a degree of similarity between the identification image and the registered image;

wherein picking up the image of the wrist blood vessel pattern is performed by prompting the positioning of a wrist in contact with a positioning section having a recessed section formed in a recessed shape on a top surface of the positioning section, wherein the image pickup section is located on a bottom surface of the recessed section, such that the wrist blood vessel pattern is not distorted at the location of the image pickup station when the wrist is in contact with the positioning section.

5. A method for personal identification according to claim 4, wherein the extraction of spatial frequency components within the predetermined range is carried out by subtracting tone data of an image of the wrist blood vessel pattern smoothed at a second scale from tone data of an image of the wrist blood vessel pattern smoothed at a first scale, the second scale being larger than the first scale.

6. A method for personal identification according to claim 4, wherein luminances of the registered image and the identification image are adjusted to be within a predetermined range.

11. The method of claim 4, wherein the positioning section and recessed section are provided in a chair armrest.

7. A computer program product, for personal identification, the computer program product stored on a computer readable medium and adapted to perform operations comprising:

storing, in advance, as a registered image, an image formed by extracting spatial frequency components within a predetermined range from an image of a wrist blood vessel pattern of a certain person;

picking up an image of a wrist blood vessel pattern of a person to be identified; and

forming an identification image by extracting spatial frequency components within the predetermined range from the picked up image of the wrist blood vessel pattern to determine whether the person to be identified and the certain person are the same, according to a degree of similarity between the identification image and the registered image;

wherein picking up the image of the wrist blood vessel pattern is performed by prompting the positioning of a wrist in contact with a positioning section having a recessed section formed in a recessed shape on a top surface of the positioning section, wherein the image pickup section is located on a bottom surface of the recessed section, such that the wrist blood vessel pattern is not distorted at the location of the image pickup station when the wrist is in contact with the positioning section.

8. The computer program product of claim 7, wherein the extraction of spatial frequency components within the predetermined range is carried out by subtracting tone data of an image of the wrist blood vessel pattern smoothed at a second scale from tone data of an image of the wrist blood vessel pattern smoothed at a first scale, the second scale being larger than the first scale.

9. The computer program product of claim 7, wherein luminances of the registered image and the identification image are adjusted to be within a predetermined range.

12. The computer program product of claim 7, wherein the positioning section and recessed section are provided in a chair armrest.