Respected international scientific journal will publish an UCM research on biometric recognition

agosto 19, 2022

The article, which compiles the most recent studies on identity verification through the veins of the palm of the hand, will be published by «Information Fusion», an authority on scientific publications.

An influential magazine based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, will publish an article written by a team of researchers from the Catholic University of Maule (UCM, by its acronym in Spanish), about identity recognition through biometric scanning of the palm of the hand.

The new biometric verification system could be added to the widespread fingerprint reader very soon.

“Different traits are used for biometric recognition. We began working on a previous project with fingerprints to carry out mass recognition and in conversations with institutions such as Gendarmerie and the Civil Registry, we noticed that the fingerprints have certain shortcomings due to wear or the acquisition methods themselves. So we took on the task of studying what other biometric traits could be reliable and robust”, said one of the authors of the article, Ruber Hernández, an academic at the Maule Research Center for Advanced Studies (CIEAM), belonging to the UCM.

«We started with the veins of the fingers and the iris -he explained- and finally we arrived at the veins of the palm of the hand. We stayed with them because vascular biometrics are a feature hidden under the skin, difficult to acquire, highly reliable and have more vein patterns than fingers”.

Hernández, an expert in pattern recognition, indicated that the journal will publish the article first in its online version, under the title «Towards the Generation of Synthetic Images of Palm Vein Patterns: A Review.»

“It is a review article; makes a whole overview of the theoretical development that exists to be used where we want to go. We are very happy, because the publication is the result of collaborative work and because of the importance of the journal itself, which is number one in the WOS ‘Computer Science’ category and fourth in Artificial Intelligence. That positions us in the world”, he pointed out.

For the Postgraduate director of the campus, Karina Vilches, who is also among the authors of the article, the success of the research will depend on the mathematical modeling to be applied.

“Through mathematical modeling, the idea is to teach the machines to process the images of the veins of the palm, unique in each human being. Although there are systems to simulate, for example, the progression of tumors or to visualize the behavior of certain ecological species, this problem belongs to the team and the laboratory”, she asserted.Edwin Salazar, PhD thesis student in Applied Mathematical Modeling at the university and main collaborator of the article, is also part of that research team. «It has been a very complex job, since it has involved reviewing many things, including the anatomy of the palm and what models can help us simulate the veins,» he said.

The article that «Information Fusion» will publish also had the cooperation of the professors of the Faculty of Engineering Sciences of the UCM, Ricardo Barrientos and Marco Mora.

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