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.