BiometricsGait biometrics still walking the walk
Research on gait biometrics at the University of Southampton, a pioneer in researching this biometric technology, has passed another landmark with the first public demonstration of the technology’s ability to withstand deliberate spooking; the technology is being perfected at the university’s Biometric Tunnel, in which data from twelve cameras is combined and processes to produce an individual “signature” of a person’s walk that is unique and recognizable with over 90 percent accuracy
Research on gait biometrics at the University of Southampton has passed another landmark with the first public demonstration of the technology’s ability to withstand deliberate spooking.
In a program shown in the Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth series (Watch this Discovery Channel video), Professor Mark Nixon of the university’s Electronics and Computer Science Department (ECS) explained how his research on gait — the way we walk — has progressed over the years. A University of Southampton release reports that the program was filmed in the ECS Biometrics Tunnel – which, the university says, is the only one of its kind in the world. The technology based in the Tunnel combines and processes data from twelve cameras to produce an individual “signature” of a person’s walk that is unique and recognizable with over 90 percent accuracy.
In the first public test of the system, Professor Nixon and two of his Ph.D. students, John Bustard and Darko Matovski, tried to fool the software by swapping clothes, wearing hats and scarves, and even a motorcycle helmet.
The technology stood up to all these tests and Nixon explained how this robustness has been able to help the U.K. police and security services. It may even be able to detect padding underneath clothing — for example, the changed body profile and walk of a suicide bomber.
“People are unique by quite a variety of different measures,” said Nixon, “and that rich diversity is fascinating.”
