Design and development of car ignition access control system based on face recognition technique

Automotive theft has been a persisting problem driving modern automotive designs in search of technologies to provide high security to the user. There are various methods to digitally authenticate the identity of the user, by means of non-biometric and/or biometric systems. A biometric based ID allows for the verification of “who you claim to be” based on “who you are”, in addition to checking for “what you have” (keys), or “what you know” (password). To incorporate an increased level of security, the state-of-the-art Face Recognition System (FRS) can be used which improves the accuracy with the added feature of being easy to use and maintainable for automobiles.

This paper deals with the design and development of a real time face recognition based car ignition access control system. The developed system consists of an FRS and an ignition controller unit. The FRS unit goes through the process of image data retrieval, image compression and face recognition. The captured test image passes through the face detector, where full face template matching approach has been used. The result of face detector is passed to the face compression block where an economic representation of face is implemented by applying the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) algorithm. For classifying and recognizing the test data accurately, the Euclidean-norm distance classifier is used. The Face Recognition Controller (FRC) is interfaced to the ignition controller system over CAN network. If the test face is of an authorized user, the FRC will transmit the user ID to the ignition controller and to the comfort management system allowing the user to start the car and alter the mirror position to the pre-set value.

The functionality of the integrated FRS with ignition control system is tested efficiently. The developed FRS is also tested and validated for different test cases involving varied facial expression, pose occluded face and skin color variations. The car ignition control unit of the developed system is also extended for the concept of security cum automatic comfort management system.