MULTIMODAL BIOMETRICS: AN OVERVIEW AND SOME RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Due to external manufacturing constraints in sensing technologies as well as inherent limitations within each biometric, no single biometric method to date can warrant a 100% authentication accuracy and usage by itself. For example, even the most advanced irisor fingerprint-recognition system has yet to be shown foolproof and can be applied to all users. The situation can nevertheless be improved or alleviated through a combination of multiple biometric sources and methods. This combination of multiple biometric methods or modalities is commonly referred to as multimodal biometrics fusion and such a system is often called a multibiometric system (Ross et al., 2006; Toh et al., 2004a).