Thermal imaging of ear biometrics

Thermal imaging of ear biometrics

Steinar Watne

• Outline– Introduction to biometrics– Ear as biometric– Research questions– Experiment– Pre-processing– Preliminary results– Conclusion


• Introduction to biometrics

– Authentication• Airports• ATM• Buildings• Computer systems

– Claiming identity and providing proof


• Introduction to biometrics cont. (Proofs)– Something you have

• Key• Token• Smart card

– Something you know• Password• PIN code

– Accepted or rejected


• Introduction to biometrics cont. (Proofs)– Something you are

• Behavioral– Gait– Signature

• Physiological– Fingerprint– Iris– Ear

– Never 100% match


• Ear as biometric

– Physiological• Feature capture

– Normal images– Thermal images– Ear prints for criminal records

– Seven characteristics


• Ear as biometric cont. (Characteristics)– Universality – Permanence – Collectability– Performance– Acceptability– Circumvention– Uniqueness


• Research questions

– What techniques do already exist for ear authentication?

– How good are our results using thermal images compared to results using existing methods?


• Research questions cont.

– Is it possible to determine differences in peoples ears by looking at a thermal image?

– Do environmental factors, e.g. temperature, affect our results in any way?


• Research questions cont. (Motivation)

– Burge et al. propose thermal images• Difference in temperature• Easy to mask hair away


• Experiment (Main)

– 75 participants• 15 images

– 3 sessions

– Right ear– Temperature


• Experiment (Main) cont.– Age

• 19-65 yrs.

– Gender• 11 female

– Mean age: 27 yrs.– Std. dev. 9

• 64 male– Mean age: 28 yrs.– Std. dev. 9


• Experiment (Sub)

– 5 Participants• Cooled ears (10 minutes)• 2 initial images• Images taken each 15 seconds for 15 minutes (61 total)

– How much time is needed before the ear is back to “normal”?


• Pre-processing

– SmartView• Palette• Scale selection

– MatLab• Axis• Rotation• Cropping/resizing


• Pre-processing cont.




















• Preliminary results

– Commercial products• Image Comparer• ImageFinder• Weka

– Algorithmic approaches• PCA• Distance metrics



– Image Comparer• Threshold at 70%• Not complete scores• What is going on behind the scenes?


• Preliminary results– Image Comparer


FAR

Threshold Threshold

FRR


– ImageFinder• Different filters• Difficult to tune• What is going on behind the scenes?• EER

– 30% visual– 31% high contrast– 36% grayscale


• Preliminary results– ImageFinder


High contrast Gray scaleVisual

• Conclusion– Burge et al. does not seem to hold– Preliminary results


Documents

Thermal imaging of ear biometrics