In January we posted a report titled "Samsung Advances their Iris Scanning and Recognition System." Samsung had been working with lndustry-Academic Cooperation Foundation Yonsei University to create a credible iris scanning system for mobile devices. Late last month a new Samsung patent Application was published by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.
Samsung believes that Iris recognition is one of the most promising approaches for biometric authentication. The iris is the only internal organ that is easily captured by a camera from the outside of a body. Moreover, because iris patterns between the pupil and the sclera have rich textures with unique and stable features, biometric authentication with iris recognition have a higher recognition accuracy than other biometric signatures.
With this availability and accuracy, iris recognition has been used in many security applications. Especially, there have been attempts to apply iris recognition technology to the security of mobile phones. The security issue of mobile phone applications becomes critical for banking or shopping services. They require a reliable and easy method to protect against unauthorized access.
In the case of bank transaction service by using a mobile phone, iris recognition is used for a high level of security.
Samsung's patent FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating the iris recognition device that the patent application states could one day work with a smartphone, tablet, a personal computer or Smart TV.
Technically speaking, Samsung's iris recognition device may transmit a modulated light signal ML to an iris and receive a reflected light signal RL which is generated as the modulated light signal ML is reflected from an iris. According to an exemplary embodiment, the iris recognition device may capture an image of an iris illuminated by a near infrared ray (NIR) using a time-of-flight (ToF) sensor. The ToF sensor may correlate four sampling signals generated using the reflected light signal RL to obtain depth information (i.e., distance information from an object). Noise such as a ghost G may occur in an image of the iris since ambient light is reflected off a cornea.
Samsung filed their U.S. patent application titled "Iris Recognition Device and Mobile Device having the same" back in November 2014. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.
Patently Mobile presents a detailed summary of patent applications with associated graphics for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent application should be read in its entirety for full and accurate details. About Posting Comments: Patently Mobile reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments.
Comments