Project Info

Walk-In: A Biometric Security System based on Vibration Signals

Biometric security systems, e.g. fingerprint scanners and facial recognition, take advantage of the unique physical and behavioral characteristics that are intrinsically linked to an individual person and therefore cannot be easily compromised through theft, collusion or loss. However, they can be intrusive as both fingerprints and facial features are considered private. In addition, the cost of setting up new biometric systems can be significant, particularly where sophisticated software is introduced. The goal of this project is to design a biometric security system based on a person’s unique walking patterns measured using vibration sensors.

For more information:
O. Costilla-Reyes, R. Vera-Rodriguez, P. Scully and K. B. Ozanyan, “Analysis of Spatio-Temporal Representations for Robust Footstep Recognition with Deep Residual Neural Networks,” in IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 285-296, 1 Feb. 2019.

Grand Challenge: Secure cyberspace

Student Preparation

Qualifications

-Self-motivated
-Good programming skills
-Knowing or be willing to learn signal processing techniques.
-Not afraid of playing with simple hardware devices (e.g. https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11744) and mini computer boards, e.g. Arduino and Raspberry Pi.

Time Commitment

15-20 hours/week

Skills/Techniques Gained

-Using geophones (e.g. https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11744) to collect vibration data
-Basic signal processing techniques
-Machine learning techniques
-How to conduct research experiments

Mentoring Plan

-Monthly or weekly meeting
-Beside me, I will assign a grad student as a mentor as well.