Near-infrared finger vein patterns for personal identification.

We have demonstrated a personal identification system that is based on near-infrared finger vein patterns. Finger vein patterns of 678 volunteers are acquired by transmitting near-infrared light through a finger and capturing the image with a CCD camera. These vein patterns are enhanced by a background-reduction filter. The similarity between two patterns is then quantified by use of the normalized maximum of the cross correlation of the two images after correction of the tilt angle. The enhanced finger vein pattern enabled 678 persons to be successfully identified.