Retinal Scan
The blood vessel patterns of the retina and the pattern of flecks on the
iris both offer unique methods of identification. These methods are presently
used for high security access control at military and bank facilities. Retinal
recognition is said to provide the most stable means of biometric
identification over time. Orientation problems are minimized because the eye
naturally aligns itself as it focuses on an illuminated target. However, comparisons
of template records can take upwards of 10 seconds, depending on the size of
your database. Initial enrollment requires 15 to 20 seconds per record.
Iris scanning does not require the person to interact with a device; a video
image of the eye can be taken from one foot away. This has obvious benefits in
applications like the one to positively identify prisoners described at the end
of this section. The user’s iris pattern is reflected back to the camera, which
captures the unique pattern and stores it using less than 35 bytes of
information. Like iris scanning, facial feature identification systems can
capture images from a distance (several meters) using video equipment. As in
other more complex systems, the challenge is achieving high levels of performance
as the size of the database increases. The potential of these systems is
generating much interest. Increased development efforts are needed in the areas
of multimedia video technology and the complex software that facial
identification requires.
Voice Pattern
©AIM Inc.
