Stand-off Iris Recognition System

The iris is a highly accurate biometric identifier. However widespread adoption is hindered by the difficulty of capturing high-quality iris images with minimal user co-operation. This paper describes a first-generation prototype iris identification system designed for stand-off cooperative access control. This system identifies individuals who stand in front of and face the system after 3.2 seconds on average. Subjects within a capture zone are imaged with a calibrated pair of wide-field-of-view surveillance cameras. A subject is located in three dimensions using face detection and triangulation. A zoomed near infrared iris camera on a pan-tilt platform is then targeted to the subject. The iris camera lens has its focal distance automatically adjusted based on the subject distance. Integrated with the iris camera on the pan-tilt platform is a near infrared illuminator that is composed of an array of directed LEDs. Video frames from the iris camera are processed to detect and segment the iris, generate a template and then identify the subject.