CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION General Background Biometrics allows a person to be identified and authenticated based on a set of recognizable and verifiable data, which are unique and specific to them. They are biological measurements, physical characteristics; that can be used to identify individuals. These characteristics includes: Fingerprint mapping, facial recognition, and retina scans. Physical characteristics are relatively and individualized – even in the case of twins; as they are being used to replace or at least augment password systems for computers, phones, restricted access rooms and buildings. Fingerprints are considered and seen to be one of the oldest, smartest, best and fastest method for biometric identification and authentication. They are safe, secure to use, uniquely specific for every persons or individuals and do not change in one's life time. A fingerprint recognition system operates either in verification mode (the act of verifying, the state of being verified, to denote confirmation, authentication) or in identification mode (a particular instance of evidence identifying an individual). Automated fingerprint identification is the process of automatically matching one or many unknown fingerprints against a database (a collection of organized information in a regular structure; usually, but necessarily in a machine-readable format accessible by a computer) of known and unknown prints. This mode of verification is a closely related practice used in applications such as attendance and access control systems. On a practical platform, verification and authentication systems verify a claimed identity (a user or student might stand on claim and right to be Babatunde Olorunsola by presenting his MATRICULATION NUMBER or ID card and verify his identity using his fingerprint), whereas identification systems determine identity based solely on fingerprints. A fingerprint is formed from an impression on a surface of composite curve segments – based around the pattern of ridges and valleys on the surface of a/the fingertip. The endpoints and crossing points of ridges are called minutiae (a plural for minutia, refers to any major features of fingerprint that allows prints to be compared). A ridge is defined as a single curved segment, ridge endings are the points where the ridge curve terminates, and bifurcations are where a ridge splits from a single path to two paths at a Y-junction while a valley is the region between two adjacent ridges. The minutiae, which are the local discontinuities in the ridge flow pattern, provide the details of the ridge-valley structures, like ridge endings and bifurcations. It is a widely believed and accepted assumption that the minutiae pattern of each finger is unique and does not change during one's or an individual’s lifetime. There are about 50 to 150 minutiae on a single fingerprint image. Features such as the type, direction, and location of minutiae are taken into account when performing minutiae extraction. The attendance system is used to monitor the attendance and movement of employees, workers, students within their working (Full activity, Lecture periods) hours and to prepare materials for marking guides, scheme of work, processing wages, Continuous assessment, and the likes of its protocols. Traditionally, manual systems were used that rely on paper cards, nominal row calls, which are signed by respective teachers, lecturers, professors; more so, the use of time stamp mainly utilized with the aid of a time stamping machine. Modern automated time and attendance systems require employees, workers, students, staffs of an organization, to touch or swipe identity cards (RFID – radio frequency-identification device) or a barcode badge. With the advent of biometrics (Vein reader, hand geometry, facial recognition, finger print) – it has consistently replaced the above specified systems. When a student enrolls his finger on the devices scanner sensor, the device scans the edge and ridge of the finger. Then it set some value from the position of that ridges and edges and combines them. Finally from this point of finger’s ridge and edge the device create binary template that is known as fingerprint template. The proposed system used these templates in the further steps, such as identification and verification. PROBLEM DEFINITION When it comes to Biometrics attendance monitoring system, the main focus is to maximize the time of the Lecturers to detailed information on the attendance of individual students – with a proper log of the number of times individual students were present or absent in class, or during a special activity. The goal of this project is to: a) Designing a student attendance management system based on Fingerprint recognition and faster one to many identification that manages records for attendance. b) Difficulties in keeping the aggregate and maintenance of the 75% attendance as stipulated by the School. JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROJECT Managing attendance records of students of an institute or in an institution is a tedious and time consuming task. It consumes time, effort, materials (paper) and other resources. To make all the attendance related work automatic and on-line, we have designed a biometric attendance management system which could be implemented in Yaba College of technology, Computer Engineering department. The use of fingerprint identification system is utilized in this project. This fingerprint identification system uses existing as well as new techniques in fingerprint recognition protocols and matching protocols. A new one too many matching algorithm for large databases has been introduced in this identification system. This project presented a framework in which attendance management was made automated and on-line. There are some limitations of the fingerprint technology. These are the inability to enroll some users for poor fingerprints. For these cases one need to consider another biometric feature. Also it can suffer some small changes along the time. To overcome this problem, the system may be necessary to re-enroll the fingerprint and/or use multiple fingerprints enrollment. The system needs to deploy specialized devices for fingerprint enrollment. AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The aim of the project was to design and construct a Biometrics attendance monitoring System in other to adopt a faster and more advanced mode of attendance monitoring and management system. In this study therefore, the researcher hopes to accomplish the following objectives: (i) To be used as the predominant Biometrics attendance monitoring system in all major institutions across the country. (ii) To reduce stress and time taken while taking attendance of students or row-call. (iii)To decrease, or at least moderate the use of local means of taken attendance; this comes to play by ensuring the device available at a low cost and asides that, the power consumption of the device is reduced to the minimum – such that, the devices runs at a longer period of time. (iv) To aid quick generation of the 75% attendance of individual students by additional software program – which displays the average number of times a student attends a class, time-in, time-out, percentage deduction of the number of entries the student has made for both the “time-in” and “time-out” respectively. LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT In order to overcome some predicted obstacles and difficulties during the project, the following limitations will help create a head start and also avoid some crucial difficulties: (i) The design of the Biometric attendance monitoring system will focus on enabling individuals “clock-in” with their details logged on the module. (ii) The use of a wireless module to convey the log-on data to a third-party-app/mobile device so as to show the detailed report of the individuals present in class will not be included. (iii) Estimated values for the Biometrics attendance monitoring system, that are not yet decided, will be used. (iv) In-line with the cost of the project, the use of a touch-screen interface may be subjected to the use of LCD. SCOPE OF THE PROJECT Our proposed Biometric attendance monitoring system consists of three main parts; so as to make the system more flexible, faster response time and suitable to use at any institute, as the needs arises. The major sections needed to be specified for the proposed Biometrics attendance monitoring system includes the following: fingerprint Scanner, control, Storage area/memory unit and or the inclusion of a Wireless module* DEFINITION OF TERMS CLOCK-IN: Register one’s arrival in class or in school for a particular course or subject – as the case may be. ID: Identity, Identification ID CARD: Identity Card LCD: Liquid Crystal Display MATRICULATION NUMBER: Also known as MATRIC. NUMBER, is the number assigned to individuals on completion of School fees or any related means of accreditation by the school to identify individuals in place of their names. RFID: Radio Frequency-identification Device. TIME-IN: Time of entrance, Time on accessing the monitoring system – most times denoting the starting phase of a lecture or a particular course/subject. TIME-OUT: Time of departure, Log-out/Log-off time on the monitoring system – Denotes the end of a lecture or a particular course/subject. *Wireless module helps synchronizes the log-on data with a third-party-app/device, within a specified distance or range. As the cost of the project is settled, and avoid future problems, accumulating from increase in the distance of the module to the third-party-app/device; it is possible that the use of the wireless module will be excluded.