SBIR-STTR Award

For the past six (6) months, Lumidigm has conducted basic research on an anti-spoofing deep tissue sensor for detecting live tissue under a Research and Development Task Order through Unisys funded by the Department of Defense for Biometrics R&D support for NSA. This project is yielding a research prototype sensor which will be delivered by March 12, 2004 to NSA. The research prototype sensor will be used to test for biological skin substitutes, animal tissue, and thin films of material applied to living human skin that could be used for creating a false finger print,. Based on this basic research, Lumidigm is proposing to conduct a feasibility study to reduce the sensor size and determine how to tightly integrate it with a finger print touch sensor and/or finger swipe sensor. This study will also determine the limitations of commercially available fingerprint sensors, the potential characteristics needed to test for liveness simultaneously when a finger is place on the finger print sensor and will determine the size and functional requirements to create a prototype finger print anti-spoofing sensor to be built in a follow-on project.

Benefits:
An important benefit from this research is the development of a finger print sensor that verifies the liveness of the presented finger simultaneously with the collection and verification of the finger print of the person under test. This would reduce or eliminate the ability to use a fake object to verify as a person’s finger print. Potential applications would be high security government locations, airports, power plants, passports stations, commercial companies requiring added security, and the trucking industry responsible for transporting HAZMAT or other harmful materials.

Keywords:
Anti-Spoofing, Liveness detection, finger print anti-spoofing

The subject of this proposal is the development of an optical sensor and algorithms for performing fingerprint spoof detection. The goal is to develop a compact, rugged, integrated optical sensor that collects both a conventional fingerprint image as well as a multispectral image of the subsurface skin characteristics. The multispectral image will be processed to ensure that the optical properties match those expected, and thereby confirm that the fingerprint was collected from a real, live, unaltered finger. The collection of both images will occur with a single user action, which has the advantages of greater user convenience, high user throughput, and increased security by having the biometric acquisition and spoof detection occurring on the same skin site at the same point in time. Once developed, the sensor and algorithms will be evaluated for vulnerabilities by an independent testing group. The results of this evaluation will be incorporated into a redesign of the technology that will then be the basis for the final deliverable from this project.

Keywords:
Biometric, Fingerprint, Multi-Spectral Imaging, Li