Multi-modal biometric authentication systems

The main goal of a biometric system is to discriminate automatically subjects in a reliable and dependable way, accordingly to a specific target application. The discrimination is based on one or more types of information derived from physical or behavioural traits, such as fingerprint, face, iris, voice, hand, or signature. Applications of biometrics range from homeland security and border control to e-commerce and e-banking, including secure networking and authentication. Traditionally, biometric systems working on a single biometric feature, have many limitations, such as, trouble with data sensors, where captured sensor data are often affected by noise, distinctiveness ability, because not all biometric features have the same distinctiveness degree, lack of universality, when some people do not have the biometric feature which a system might allow. Multi-modal biometric systems are a recent approach developed to overcome these problems. These systems show significant improvements over uni-modal biometric systems, in terms of higher accuracy and higher resistance to spoofing. Multi-modal biometric identification systems aim to fuse two or more biometric information to improve system dependability.