BitFlow plays crucial role in new fingerprint imaging system design

BitFlow, Inc. announced that it designed a key component of a new fingerprint imaging system that can look underneath the finger’s skin to identify an individual quickly and accurately.

The fingerprint system was engineered by two scientists from The Langevin Institute in Paris. Egidijus Auksorius, postdoctoral researcher, and Claude Boccara, a professor who specializes in scientific instruments.

The system captures “internal fingerprints” which share the same topographical features as external fingerprints, but are about half a millimeter below the skin’s surface.

The machine can also capture image sweat pores, which provides additional means of identification.

The fingerprint imaging system delivers a more accurate and secure method of authentication than traditional fingerprint scanning devices, which can be tricked by spoofing and sometimes fail to recognize legitimate prints when the finger is dirty, worn, scarred, or too wet or dry.

Bitflow’s new Cyton CXP4 CoaXPress frame grabber allows the interface of an Adimec two-megapixel CXP-6 camera with the system’s host computer, without the use of an external power supply or additional cables to secure communications.

The Cyton CXP4 frame grabber enables video to be captured at rapid speeds of up to 6.25Gb/S.

Simultaneously, control commands and triggers can all be sent to the camera at a speed of 20Mb/S. Up to 13W of power can be distributed to the camera through a single piece of industry standard 75 Ohm coaxial cable.

The internal fingerprint sensor is based on full-field optical coherence tomography (FF-OCT) that Boccara’s laboratory invented and developed in the early 2000s.

FF-OCT can use a spatially and temporally incoherent source and is based on 2D detector, which is faster, less expensive and easier to deploy in regards to capturing fingerprints.

It works by analyzing the interference patterns that are generated when a beam of light coming from the predetermined depth of the finger is combined with a reference beam of light.

Images of an internal fingerprint can be captured in under a second, making them adequate for live fingerprint imaging applications. Speed is critical in that any finger movement will diminish the quality of the image.

In a scientific paper published in a leading journal, Auksorius and Boccara detailed how they initially used an expensive InGaAs camera with the fingerprint system.

However, the scientists recently demonstrated how a new silicon camera from Adimec can capture images of the internal fingerprints of similar quality, as a result of the camera’s high frame rate and pixel’s high full well capacity. The system also uses a compact LED source emitting at 780 nm to provide illumination.

“The performance of the BitFlow Cyton CXP4 enabled us to capture images at the camera’s full speed, giving us a distinct competitive advantage on the innovation curve,” Auksorius said. “It provides the ideal interface for running a CoaXPress-based camera system to support real-time visualization.”

Article Topics

biometric authentication  |  BitFlow  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  identity verification  |  research and development  |  spoof detection