A retina scanner for the handbag
Since the blood vessels of the retina reflect light at a lesser extent than the remaining area of its nerve cells, it is possible to acquire the pattern they are forming – a pattern unique to every person on the planet, just like finger print, voice or facial features. For security and authentication applications, the retinal scan of a person seeking authorization or access is compared to the retina vessel pattern of the authorized person stored in the system. Typically, this process requires complex laser scanners – machines that for their sheer size and cost point were restricted to extremely security critical institutions such as government agencies and security services. The high marksmanship of such scans could make them ideal as for authentication in payment processes or even to unlock the car – if these systems only would be more cost-effective and easier to handle.
The team around Fraunhofer IPMS researcher Uwe Schelinski, System Integration group manager at the Dresden-based institute devised a retina scanner prototype that could fit into a gripsack. The system integrates the optical parts involved in the scan – infrared laser, eyepiece and MEMS scanner in a box of 12 x 9 x 6 cm. Key to the miniaturization are the MEMS micro mirrors – they enabled the designers to shrink the system to its extremely compact form factor. "To our knowledge, the compactness of our system is unique", Schelinski says.
The portable retina scanner is the result of the MARS (Mobile Authentication by means of Retinal Scanning) research project which has been funded in part by the German federal research ministry (BMBF).
Currently the box contains only the optical components of such a scanner. The goal of the researchers is to add the electronic systems that control the laser beam and process the measurement results into the same box. In addition, the group also plans to perfect the evaluation software until the project will terminate in December 2014. In these tasks, the Dresden research group gets support from another Fraunhofer institute, the Fraunhofer institute for systems and innovation research (ISI), based in Karlsruhe which within the scope of the project is responsible for aspects such as ergonomic and legal aspects as well as user acceptance.
According to Schelinski, there remains a long way to go until such a system can be integrated into a smartphone. Nevertheless, small add-on modules that enable the scanner to connect to a smartphone via Bluetooth, NFC or WiFi would be feasible. "Perhaps this would be more reasonable as the next step", Schelinski ponders "Mobile phones at present are not secure enough anyway".
Nevertheless, the miniaturized retina scanner offers two significant advantages compared to stationary solutions. "First, the data acquired are stored locally, not in a remote data base. This improves the factor of data privacy. And second, the acceptance for such a mobile device is much higher than of a stationary system".
The prototype will be on display at the Optatec trade fair from May 20 to 22 in Frankfurt.
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