Fingerprint recognition firmware released, including an open source 'extractor' package

By Eric Brown
2011-11-15

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DigitalPersona is shipping Linux- and Android-ready fingerprint recognition software for biometric and mobile device manufacturers. FingerJet OEM provides fingerprint extraction, identification, and verification, runs in just 192KB of code space, and is compliant with NIST's MINEX Ongoing Test standard -- and the extractor function is available separately as a free, open source FingerJetFX OSE product.

Authentication and endpoint protection vendor DigitalPersona is known for its U.are.U Fingerprint Modules, including the U.are.U 5100 shown at right. The company also offers its One Touch fingerprint recognition software development kit (SDKs) for Linux and Windows platforms.

The new FingerJet OEM firmware is designed to bring similar software capabilities to third-party devices. FingerJet OEM is primarily intended to be embedded into chips, fingerprint sensors, mobile devices, and mobile ID terminals, but can also run on PCs and large servers, says the company.

FingerJet OEM provides fingerprint extraction, identification, and verification functionality, says DigitalPersona. The feature extractor function meets and exceeds the Personal Identity Verification (PIV) requirements for fingerprint template interoperability, and it's compliant with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) MINEX Ongoing Test, says DigitalPersona.

The extractor converts bulky fingerprint images into small, mathematical representations called "templates" for more efficient storage or analysis. The fingerprint template matcher function, meanwhile, offers fast one-to-many identification as well as one-to-one verification, says the company.

Written in self-contained C++, FingerJet OEM is said to require approximately 192KB of code space and 128KB of data space. It can run on Linux, Android, Windows, Windows CE, real-time operating systems (RTOSes) and even bare-metal embedded systems without an OS, says the company.

Commercial licenses for FingerJet OEM are said to be available for source code as well as binaries. The firmware is said to support 32-bit and 64-bit CPUs as well as 32-bit microcontrollers.

FingerJet OEM does not require special hardware such as DSPs (digital signal processors) or floating point units (FPUs), says DigitalPersona. The firmware can even be used with basic, 8 bits-per-pixel grayscale image data from any brand of fingerprint sensor or fingerprint image database, claims the company.

FingerJetFX fingerprint extraction function open sourced

DigitalPersona also announced that a FingerJetFX version of FingerJet OEM's central feature extractor function (see above) is now available as a free, open source FingerJetFX, Open Source Edition (OSE) release under the Lesser GNU Public License (LGPL). FingerJetFX OSE is similarly compliant with the MINEX Outgoing Test, and compatible with the same operating systems, including Linux, Android, Windows, and Windows CE.

According to DigitalPersona, FingerJetFX OSE can extract fingerprint minutiae from an image in 10-25 milliseconds on an Intel Core i7. The company is also offering a commercially-licensed FingerJetFX version of the extactor that is said to offer fingerprint matching for both identification and verification while still running in a small amount of memory.

Stated Jim Fulton, vice president of DigitalPersona, "Hardware and software developers have historically had to trade off size, speed, reliability and support for standards when choosing fingerprint recognition software to embed into their products. FingerJet OEM frees device manufacturers and system integrators from having to make compromises."

Availability

FingerJet OEM and FingerJetFX OSE are available now, with the latter open source extractor software available as a free, open source download. More information may be found on DigitalPersona's FingerJet OEM and FingerJetFX OSE product pages, respectively.

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