An improved image enhancement scheme for fingerprint minutiae extraction in biometric identification

Abstract

In this paper a complete algorithmic scheme for automatic fingerprint recognition is presented. In [3] an identification/verification system is described. The whole recognition process is accomplished in two stages: in the first one, biometric characteristics of fingerprints are extracted (characteristics denoted as minutiae, which represent basically the beginning, end or bifurcation of a ridge), and in the second stage, those fingerprints will be matched with templates belonging to the test database. In this paper, some improving alternatives regarding the first stage, namely the image enhancement process, are proposed, consequently leading to an increase of the reliability in the minutiae extraction stage. Conclusions in terms of Goodness Index (GI) are provided in order to test the global performance of this system. © Springer-Verlag 2001.