In-field Remote Fingerprint Authentication using Human Body Communication and On-Hub Analytics
It addresses secure information delivery for soldiers in battlefield settings, but is incremental as it optimizes existing biometric and communication methods.
The paper tackles the problem of secure in-field fingerprint authentication for mobile tactical environments by proposing an energy-efficient system using Human Body Communication and on-hub analytics, demonstrating feasibility with a custom hardware prototype.
In this emerging data-driven world, secure and ubiquitous authentication mechanisms are necessary prior to any confidential information delivery. Biometric authentication has been widely adopted as it provides a unique and non-transferable solution for user authentication. In this article, the authors envision the need for an in-field, remote and on-demand authentication system for a highly mobile and tactical environment, such as critical information delivery to soldiers in a battlefield. Fingerprint-based in-field biometric authentication combined with the conventional password-based techniques would ensure strong security of critical information delivery. The proposed in-field fingerprint authentication system involves: (i) wearable fingerprint sensor, (ii) template extraction (TE) algorithm, (iii) data encryption, (iv) on-body and long-range communications, all of which are subject to energy constraints due to the requirement of small form-factor wearable devices. This paper explores the design space and provides an optimized solution for resource allocation to enable energy-efficient in-field fingerprint-based authentication. Using Human Body Communication (HBC) for the on-body data transfer along with the analytics (TE algorithm) on the hub allows for the maximum lifetime of the energy-sparse sensor. A custom-built hardware prototype using COTS components demonstrates the feasibility of the in-field fingerprint authentication framework.