Ural federal university: University Scientists Create Advanced Biosmart Biometric Scanners
Employees of the leading domestic developer of biometric equipment, Skolkovo resident Biosmart, and the Ural Federal University are working on a new generation of biometric scanners for palm vein identification. Scientists carry out R&D and optical elements testing at the Research and Educational Center – Nanomaterials and Nanotechnologies of the Ural Federal University.
“Over the past years, Nanotech has been successfully conducting intensive research and development in the field of new functional materials for nano and optoelectronics, nanoplasmonics, and nano-optics,” says Ilya Vainshtein, Director of the REC Nanomaterials and Nanotechnologies of UrFU. “This allowed our scientists Alexander Vokhmintsev and Dmitry Chaikin, together with Biosmart, to quickly find successful innovative solutions for creating and testing new hypersensitive elements for biometric scanners. It proves once again that new and unique materials lie at the heart of the most advanced digital technologies. Scientists who possess knowledge of these materials and have learned to control their properties provide the most rapid advancement of modern technologies along the path from the blueprint to people.
Palm vein recognition is one of the most advanced and high-precision technologies for biometric identification. In Russia, Biosmart is considered the leading developer of solutions in this area. In 2016, the company engineers developed an innovative method for scanning the palm veins in multispectral infrared light. Today the vein scanner is patented in Russia, Europe, and the USA.
“The heart of the vein scanner is a compact camera with nanoelements that instantly reads the complex pattern of the veins of the human palm. In the cleanroom of REC Nanotech, together with scientists from UrFU, we develop and assemble new samples of such equipment. This work requires accuracy, and most importantly – deep knowledge in optics. We are deeply grateful to colleagues from the university and the center for allowing us to engage in this research – they provided resources, personnel, as well as the experience and potential of the national scientific school “, – says the head of the production department of Biosmart Mikhail Fedorov.
The method is based on the ability of blood hemoglobin to absorb part of infrared waves. In infrared rays, the pattern of the venous vessels of the palm appears as a pattern of dark lines. This pattern is unique for each person – it is formed at birth and does not change throughout life, which allows it to be used as a reliable identifier of a person.
The pattern of blood vessels does not depend on the condition of the skin, thus the vein scanner successfully recognizes a person by a damp or dusty palm, a palm with cuts and abrasions, and even a palm in a thin medical glove.
Today, Biosmart engineers, in close partnership with Russian scientists, continue scientific and research work to create new, more advanced, and efficient generations of these devices.
Research and development and testing of optics for palm vein scanners are carried out at the REC “Nanomaterials and Nanotechnologies” of Ural Federal University. For work, a so-called cleanroom is used – an almost sterile room in which the number of dust microparticles, microbes, and other contaminants is minimized, which allows working with high-precision optics.
In the cleanroom, young scientists and highly qualified technical specialists from the university are working out new technologies, collecting and testing samples of high-tech products.
Recently, the center’s team completed the development of a unique polarizing nano filter for the Palmjet non-contact vein scanner. The filter cuts off the scattered sunlight and focuses the rays of the desired spectrum on the optical matrix of the scanner. As a result, the scanner performs excellently even in bright sunlight and recognizes the veins of the palm better than any other similar device.
The filter has passed scientific and technical expertise at Rusnano. The corporation’s experts confirmed that the Palmjet polarizing filter system was created using high-precision methods and can be classified as nanotechnology.