Performance of a photorefractive joint transform correlator for fingerprint identification

A photorefractive joint transform correlator is connected to a PC-based image processing board and tested for fingerprint recognition. Distortions due to rotation, scale, and partial hiding are considered: ± 4 deg in rotation, ± 7% in scale, and up to 80% hiding can be handled by the correlator. The performance of the correlator operating with a realtime fingerprint acquisition camera is then measured. The captured fingerprint is generally distorted with respect to its original counterpart stored in the PC memory. These distortions are mostly due to the positioning and pressure of the finger on the glass prism of the camera. We evaluate the recognition performance qualitatively and statistically with these distortions on a limited data bank and demonstrate 80% successful recognition rate.