Enabling Fingerprint Authentication in Embedded Systems for Wireless Applications

In this paper, we study different methodologies for implementing fingerprint authentication in embedded systems, namely the DSP and System-on-Chip approaches, for Wireless Applications. Experiments were conducted for evaluation of these approaches. Results show that the SoC system with fixed-point arithmetic support is probably the most ideal candidate. With the recent development in mobile commerce, authentication technologies quickly become critical parts in mobile embedded devices like PDAs, cell-phones, etc. Among such technologies, fingerprint matching is the most common method. Yet, fingerprint matching algorithms involve substantial amounts of computation, making it a non- trivial task to achieve in the embedded devices. Several methods can be used to enable the implementation of fingerprint authentication in embedded systems. They include the Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), Digital Signal Processor (DSP) and System-on-Chip (SoC) methods. In this paper, we will review the fingerprint matching algorithms and study their implementation using DSP and SoC methods experimentally. Our experience should provide a guidance for future development of other biometrics applications in the embedded system environment. 2. Fingerprint embedded systems Fingerprint system can be generally divided, according to their purpose of application, into two types: identification and verification applications. Identification application means identification of a person from a group of individuals. It often searches a database for the identity of a person using the person's fingerprint as index. The database size can range from a few persons (home use) to hundreds of persons. The performance of such system is database size dependent. Access control is a typical identification example. Figure 1 shows the block diagram of a common access control system. Enrollment is conducted when a user first registered a fingerprint in the system. The core part of the system is the authentication device. It needs to handle different connections such as Ethernet, RS232 and Wiegand (an industrial standard security protocol sending bit strings of specified length and specified content) in order to communicate with the enrollment machine, database server and security controller. Since our concern is limited to embedded systems, we will focus on those applications involving only a few fingerprint records so that all the components in Figure 1 are housed in one single embedded system