Finger vein authentication apparatus and finger vein authentication method

1. A finger vein authentication apparatus comprising:

a lens array including a plurality of photo-receiving lenses arranged in an array;

a plurality of near-infrared illumination sources placed along opposed ends of the lens array to illuminate a part of a finger with near-infrared light;

an image pickup device to create a picked-up image of a vein based on the near-infrared light scattered inside the finger, transmitted through the vein and gathered by the lens array, the image pickup device creating two kinds of picked-up images by performing line scanning in both of a first direction along an alignment direction of the near-infrared illumination sources and a second direction orthogonal to the first direction and along a lengthwise direction of the finger;

a vein pattern extraction unit to extract vein patterns respectively from the two kinds of picked-up images;

an authentication unit to authenticate the extracted two kinds of vein patterns; and

an imaging range detection unit to detect a relative position of an imaging range of the finger by using at least one of a crease pattern near a first joint and a crease pattern near a second joint of the finger existing in at least one of the two kinds of vein patterns.

2. The finger vein authentication apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising:

a storage unit to store a vein information set including a plurality of vein patterns as a template,

wherein the authentication unit selects the vein pattern from the vein information set by using at least one of the crease pattern near the first joint and the crease pattern near the second joint.

3. The finger vein authentication apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein

the authentication unit creates a whole image of finger veins by combining the plurality of vein patterns and registering the whole image of finger veins as the template upon registration of the vein pattern, and specifies a part imaged in the vein pattern upon authentication by using at least one of the crease pattern near the first joint and the crease pattern near the second joint.

4. The finger vein authentication apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein

the authentication unit additionally registers an intersection between the crease pattern near the first joint or the crease pattern near the second joint and the vein pattern as a feature point.

5. The finger vein authentication apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein

a plurality of photoreceptors in the image pickup device are allocated to one photo-receiving lens, and

the finger vein authentication apparatus further comprises:

a parallax information acquisition unit to acquire information about parallax when imaging a part of the finger by using a plurality of kinds of imaging data obtained by imaging a part of the same finger with use of the plurality of photoreceptors; and

an outer shape detection unit to detect an outer shape of the finger by using the parallax information.

6. A finger vein authentication method comprising the steps of:

illuminating a part of a finger with near-infrared light;

gathering the near-infrared light scattered inside the finger and transmitted through a vein by a lens array including a plurality of photo-receiving lenses arranged in an array;

creating two kinds of picked-up images by imaging the near-infrared light scattered inside the finger, transmitted through the vein and gathered by the lens array with use of an image pickup device that performs line scanning in both of a direction along a lengthwise direction of the finger and a direction orthogonal to the lengthwise direction of the finger;

extracting vein patterns respectively from the two kinds of picked-up images;

detecting a relative position of an imaging range of the finger by using at least one of a crease pattern near a first joint and a crease pattern near a second joint of the finger existing in at least one of the two kinds of vein patterns; and

authenticating the extracted two kinds of vein patterns.

7. A finger vein authentication apparatus comprising:

a lens array including a plurality of photo-receiving lenses arranged in an array;

a plurality of near-infrared illumination sources placed along opposed ends of the lens array to illuminate a part of a finger with near-infrared light;

an image pickup device to create a picked-up image of a vein based on the near-infrared light scattered inside the finger, transmitted through the vein and gathered by the lens array, the image pickup device creating a picked-up image by performing line scanning in at least one of a first direction along an alignment direction of the near-infrared illumination sources and a second direction orthogonal to the first direction and along a lengthwise direction of the finger;

a vein pattern extraction unit to extract a vein pattern from the picked-up image;

an authentication unit to authenticate the extracted vein pattern; and

an imaging range detection unit to detect a relative position of an imaging range of the finger by using at least one of a crease pattern near a first joint and a crease pattern near a second joint of the finger extracted from the vein pattern.