Multibiometric Systems: Overview, Case Studies and Open Issues

Information fusion refers to the reconciliation of evidence presented by multiple sources of information in order to generate a decision. In the context of biometrics, evidence reconciliation plays a pivotal role in enhancing the recognition accuracy of human authentication systems and is referred to as multibiometrics. Multibiometric systems combine the information presented by multiple biometric sensors, algorithms, samples, units, or traits in order to establish the identity of an individual. Besides enhancing matching performance, these systems are expected to improve population coverage, deter spoofing, facilitate continuous monitoring and impart fault-tolerance to biometric applications.