A standoff system for noncooperative ocular biometrics

The iris and more recently vascular patterns seen on the white of the eye have been considered for ocular biometrics. The non-contact nature, uniqueness, and permanence of ocular features makes them promising. Among new challenges are to develop commercial systems for less constrained environments and at extended distances. Such systems need to have minimal burden on the user and be robust for non-cooperative users. We present the design and development of standoff system for noncooperative ocular biometrics using system integration approach. Review of existing commercial and experimental long-range biometric systems is presented. The process of selection of sensors and illumination techniques is described. The development of user interfaces and algorithms for a working prototype is explained. The performance is evaluated with images of 28 subjects, acquired at distances up to 9 meters. The conflicting requirements for the design of this standoff biometric system, and the resulting performance limitations with impact on image quality are discussed.