A hierarchical algorithm for multi-feature based fingerprint identification

There are different features, such as minutiae, orientation-based minutia descriptor, FingerCode, ridge feature map, orientation map, and density map, to represent fingerprints. Previous studies showed that the performance can be improved by combining these features through a fusion strategy. However, the more features are used, the more time is consumed. In fingerprint verification application, it is tolerated for the system is one-to-one matching. But in automatic fingerprint identification systems (AFIS) which is one-to-N matching (N is the number of fingerprint in the database and it is usually very large), it is not acceptable. In this paper, a fast algorithm for multi-feature based fingerprint identification is proposed. A hierarchical strategy is utilized to quickly discard most false matchings in different stages. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can reduce the searching time a lot while preserves the searching ratio.