Fingerprint matching based on error propagation

Fingerprint matching is one of the most important modules in automatic fingerprint identification systems (AFIS). Traditional methods treat this problem as point pattern matching, which is essentially an intractable problem. We propose an effective fingerprint matching algorithm based on error propagation. First, we find initial correspondence according to the ridge information associated with each minutia. Secondly, we construct a MatchedSet which is composed of initial correspondence and the surrounding matched pairs. Finally, the matching errors of the minutiae pairs in the MatchedSet are adopted to guide the subsequent matching process and the newly matched pairs are added into the MatchedSet. The operation is repeated until the elements in the MatchedSet do not change any more. In this procedure, the local deformation can be tracked, thus the algorithm provides robustness to non-linear deformation commonly seen in fingerprint images. The algorithm was tested on NIST-24 database, and the result is promising.