Real-time FPGA-based human iris recognition embedded system: zero-delay human iris feature extraction

Abstract

Nowadays most of iris recognition algorithms are implemented based on sequential operations running on central processing units (CPUs). Conventional iris recognition systems use a frame grabber to capture a high quality image of an eye, and then system shall locate the pupil and iris boundaries, unwrap the iris image, and extract the iris image features. In this article we propose a prototype design based on pipeline architecture and combinational logic implemented on field-programmable gate array (FPGA). We achieved to speed up the iris recognition process by localizing the pupil and iris boundaries, unwrapping the iris image and extracting features of the iris image while image capturing was in progress. Consequently, live images from human eye can be processed continuously without any delay or lag. We conclude that iris recognition acceleration by pipeline architecture and combinational logic can be a complete success when it is implemented on low-cost FPGAs. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.