Foot biometricsNew biometrics discipline -- foot biometrics – for security, disease detection

Identity science takes a giant, well, step forward with a new discipline in biometrics: foot biometrics. Carnegie Mellon University researchers at the new $1.5 million per year Pedo-Biometrics Research and Identity Automation Lab are teaming up with Autonomous ID, an Ottawa, Canada, company currently relocating operations to the United States, to test insole sensory system prototypes for a variety of identification uses, from security to detecting the onset of such diseases as diabetes and Parkinson’s.

The CMU Pedo-Biometrics Lab, headed by Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Marios Savvides, aims to provide the roadmap for scientific analysis and algorithm research and development for the new pedo-biometrics discipline, which uses a specially designed insole to monitor foot movement. 

A Carnegie Mellon University release reports that Vladimir Polotski, the chief science and technology officer of Autonomous ID, will work with CMU’s Savvides and Vijayakumar Bhagavatula to provide researchers with the instructional technology intrinsic to the emerging science of pedo-biometrics.

“This new collaboration is a wonderful way to showcase our ongoing work in the emerging field of biometrics and our growing commitment to integrate innovative lab work with the needs of industry. It also offers wonderful opportunities for fundamental research in pedo-biometrics with potential applications in medical diagnosis, forensic science, privacy, security and automation,” said Bhagavatula, a professor of electrical and computer engineering (ECE).

“The establishment of the Pedo-Biometrics Lab at CMU recognizes our technological achievements and we look forward to exploring the new frontier at the university,” Polotski said.

Todd Gray, chairman and president of Autonomous ID, said this new CMU lab gives his company the needed research and development boost to field trial the primary identity apparatus dubbed BioSole and its cloud connected automation suite governing the access and use of controlled resources.

“The continuing threats to military personnel and critical infrastructure and the growing national cyber security vulnerabilities demand a new breed of credentialing technology, and what our group has achieved certainly puts a whole new spin on things,” Gray said.

Savvides reports that the new lab will be housed at CMU and will complement his work of using the iris of the human eye as a fingerprint to trap cybercriminals. “As a researcher and a professor, this new frontier is exciting. There is really no limit to what can be done with this new identity technology; I look forward to beginning.”

The concept behind pedo-biometrics is based on the fact that each person has unique feet, and ways of walking. Sensors in the bio-soles check the pressure of feet, monitor gait, and use a microcomputer to compare the patterns to a master file for that person. If the patterns match the bio-soles go to sleep. If they do not, a wireless alarm message can go out.

“It’s part of a shoe that you don’t have to think about,” Savvides told Fox News.

The technology claims an accuracy rate of more than 99 percent. Savvides said Carnegie Mellon will broaden the tests to include “a full spectrum of society: big, tall, thin, heavy, athletic, multicultural, on a diet, twins and so on.”

Autonomous ID’s Gray would not speculate on what the system will cost or when it might reach the marketplace, but each worker at a site would have his or her own pair of bio-soles. “Within the third step, it knows it’s you, and it goes back to sleep,” he told Fox News. “If I put on yours, it would know almost instantly that I’m not you.”