User's Manual

MorphoAccess® VP Series - User Guide
Section 1: Introduction
13 M ORPHO DOCUMENT . R EPRODUCTION AND D ISCLOSURE P ROHIBITED SSE-0000082427-01
January 2011
About finger vein biometrics
Vascular pattern recognition is a relatively recent activity in the field of biometrics.
The reason is that only recently has one been able to observe the vascular pattern of a
living human being in a convenient, non-invasive way. The first paper opening the
way to this kind of observation was published in the early nineties.
Similarly to fingerprints, the formation of the vascular network is governed by many
different phenomena, competing to give the network its “final” shape. Therefore, it is
widely accepted within the medical community that the vascular pattern is unique to
each individual. Research suggests that the vascular pattern may be subject to changes
in the course of the life of an individual but that it is a very slow process. Any
significant change in this pattern indeed has dramatic consequences on all basic
functions of an organism.
The specific traits of the vascular network, combined with recent advances in
acquisition techniques, qualify it as an excellent candidate for biometric authentication
and identification.
The basic principle for finger vein pattern acquisition is to select an illumination
wavelength for which absorption from deoxidized hemoglobin (flowing freely in the
blood stream) will be maximum and “background” absorption (all other cell tissues)
will be minimal. This way the vascular pattern will appear in great contrast “through”
the different layers of skin in the finger.
The acquired image is then processed through standard image processing techniques to
enhance the relevant signal and diminish noise, down to a smaller number of gray
levels to be able to perform efficient matching.
Figure 2: Vascular pattern image processing
Source: “Finger Vein Authentication technology and financial applications” by M. Himaga and K. Kou
Nowadays, vein recognition technology is among the most reliable and usable
biometric technology available on the market. One of its strong assets is its resistance
to forgery. Spoofing vein recognition is very difficult for two reasons : 1/ the actual
information lies under the skin, is therefore impossible to acquire without the user’s
consent, and 2/ the illumination and imaging techniques require specific traits of blood
vessels to form a biometrically valid image to be formed.
The technology implemented in the MorphoAccess® VP Series terminals is based
upon patented technology developed by Hitachi.