Automatic Fingerprint Identification and Verification System Design for General Usage

This work presents an automatic fingerprint identification and verification system for general usage. Design processes of the system have been presented step by step. Fingerprints were first converted into digital images using a specific hardware. They were then processed by a computer. Fingerprint images were divided into grid blocks, and these blocks were classified as image area and background. An effective algorithm was developed and used to detect the fingerprint singularities from gray level fingerprint images. In order to improve the performance of the system, fingerprint image enhancement was performed by using a mask. Binary images were obtained from the enhancement images using a regional binarization algorithm. Binary images were converted to thin images. Ridge endings and ridge bifurcations of the fingerprints (minutiae) were extracted. A postprocessing algorithm was used to eliminate false minutiae patterns and the fingerprint matching process was finally applied. In order to automatise the system, a software for fingerprint identification and verification was developed in Delphi. 100 fingerprint images were used for identification and verification. The system developed in this work achieves the task with high accuracy.