Current Trends in Multimodal Biometric System—Rank Level Fusion

Abstract

Biometric identification referes to idetifying an individual based on his or her physilogical or beavioral characteristics. The use of more than one biometric identfiers in a biometric system, called the multimodal biometric system, increases the overall system accuracy and hence increase security, as well as reduce the enrollment problems. An effective and appropriate fusion strategy is needed to integrate different biometric information in such multimodal systems. This chapter provides an in-depth overview of traditional multimodal biometric systems and current trends in multimodal biometric fusion. Various approaches of rank level fusion, which is an not heavily investigated by researchers yet, are also illustrated in details in this chapter. Pros and cons of these rank fusion approaches are discussed which can be helpful for large scale multimodal biometric system deployment. IntroductionControlling access to prohibited areas and protecting important national or public information are some of the main activities of security and intelligence services of many countries of the world. Often, to decide if a person is allowed to access a prohibited area, a biometric system is employed. A biometric system is an automated method of recognizing a person based on a physiological (face, iris, ear etc.) and/or behavioral (signature, voice, typing patterns etc.) characteristics [1]. Other applications of biometrics systems include e-commerce, access to computer networks, online banking, border control, parenthood determination, medical records management, and welfare disbursement.The optimal biometric recognition method is one having the properties of distinctiveness, universality, permanence, acceptability, collect ability, and resistance to circumvention [2]. No existing biometric system simultaneously meets all of these requirements; however the use of more than one biometric can help to develop a system which approaches those goals [3]. The advantages of multimodal systems stem from the fact that there are multiple sources of information. The most prominent implications of this are increased accuracy, fewer enrolment problems and enhanced security. All multimodal biometric systems need a fusion module that takes individual data and combines it

Multi-Biometric Systems: A State of the Art Survey and Research Directions

“…For example, two persons may have the similar signature patterns, in which case, the signature verification system will produce large FAR for that system. Addition of face recognition system with the signature verification system may solve the problem and reduce the FAR [9]. Experiments have shown that the accuracy of multimodality can reach near 100% in identification.…”

“…It prevents from stolen the templates of biometric system as at the time it stores the two characteristics of biometric system in the database [25]. For example, it would be more challenge for attacker to spoof many different biometric identifiers [9]. Further, when two or more modalities are used for authentication, it leads to become not easy to spoof the biometric system.…”

“…In case of unavailability or poor quality of a particular biometric data, other biometric identifier of the multimodal biometric system can be used to capture data. For example, a face biometric identifier can be used in a multimodal system (involves fingerprint of general labors with lots of scars in the hand) [9]. It makes better system operation [24].…”

“…In multi-biometrics, failure of one biometrics will make the whole system to fail [28]. In addition, multimodal biometric systems, may be more expensive and complicated due to the requirement of additional hardware and matching algorithms, and there is a greater demand for computational poser and storage [9]. Recent research has revealed that multi-biometric systems can increase the security level as a means to enhance network security to people who are encouraged to use biometric systems in this field.…”

“…Consequently, it is now needed in many fields such as surveillance systems, security systems, physical buildings [8]. Other applications of biometrics systems include [9,10]: access control (access to computer networks), forensic investigations, verification and authentication, e-commerce, online banking, border control, parenthood determination, medical records management, welfare disbursement and security monitoring. Biometrics applications increased dramatically in functionality in many more fields.…”