Fuzzy models for fingerprint description

Abstract

Fuzzy models, traditionally used in the control field to model controllers or plants behavior, are used in this work to describe fingerprint images. The textures, in this case the directions of the fingerprint ridges, are described for the whole image by fuzzy if-then rules whose antecedents consider a part of the image and the consequent is the associated dominant texture. This low-level fuzzy model allows extracting higher-level information about the fingerprint, such as the existence of fuzzy singular points and their fuzzy position within the image. This is exploited in two applications: to provide comprehensive information for user of unattended automatic recognition systems and to extract linguistic patterns to classify fingerprints.