I-Corps: Cardiac Password - The Next Generation Biometric Authentication

Texas Tech University, Lubbock TX

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is a new authentication solution that can identify users in a noncontact, non-volitional and secure way. Continuous authentication and noncontact operation are great values for an authentication system. However, many of the existing authentication methods do not provide those values. The proposed product is a new continuous authentication system by noncontact sensing cardiac waveform based on a smart radar technology. Compared with existing authentication systems, this technology improves the convenience and safeguard of many systems and facilities. This project could benefit many institutions or personnel that seek for a higher-level protection to prevent cyber attacks. Besides the benefits to a more secure world, the radar-based motion sensing technology to be investigated in this project could benefit other disciplines such as health/elderly care (examples include sleep monitoring and fall detection), disaster search and rescue (examples include finding victims buried under earthquake debris and tracking rescuers), and smart living applications (one example is remote gesture control of appliances). This I-Corps project aims to bring authentication solutions to a more secure and convenient level. Cardiac password, based on the human heart cardiac motion waveform, will work as a new noncontact biometric to authenticate users into computers and facilities. The technology is a high-sensitivity and high-accuracy motion sensor. Such a motion sensor can be embedded in an electronic system or device such as a computer, a smart meter, or an energy control system. It can also be installed at the entrance of a room/facility that requires authentication to access. The motion sensor continues to track the user?s heartbeat waveform to guarantee the system/device is used by the same authorized user or the room/facility is occupied by the same authorized person. The development of this technology combines researches in Electrical Engineering, Bioengineering, Computer Science, and Cyber Security. It involves multiple research areas including radio-frequency (RF) system design, bio-signal processing, pattern recognition, biometrics, and computer security. The result of this project will provide a secure, trustworthy, and noncontact continuous authentication approach based on invariant and non-volitional features of human cardiac motion. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.