Electronic devices with improved iris recognition and methods thereof

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10068078-B2
Application number	US-201514883869-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 15, 2015
Priority date	Oct 15, 2015
Publication date	Sep 4, 2018
Grant date	Sep 4, 2018

Abstract

An electronic device and a method for improving iris recognition for providing access to the electronic device. The electronic device includes an iris scanner, an ambient light sensor, a memory and a processor. The memory includes computer program code for providing access control to the electronic device to a user by iris recognition of the user's iris. The processor causes the electronic device to prompt the user to provide iris samples of the user's iris to the iris scanner in a particular lighting condition measured by the ambient light sensor in occurrence of at least one of first event and second event. The first event occurs if the processor determines a missing information associated with an iris sample in the particular lighting condition in the electronic device. The second event occurs if the processor detects an unsuccessful iris recognition attempt for accessing the electronic device in the particular lighting condition.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An electronic device, comprising:
an iris scanner for capturing iris samples of a user's iris;
an ambient light sensor for measuring lighting condition in surroundings of the electronic device;
a memory comprising computer program code for providing access control to at least a part of the electronic device to a user by using at least iris recognition of the user's iris; and
a processor communicably coupled with the memory, the ambient light sensor and the iris scanner, the processor configured to execute the computer program code to cause the electronic device to:
during a set up process, prompt the user to provide a plurality of iris samples in a plurality of lighting conditions to the iris scanner and store the plurality of iris samples in the memory;
detect, by the ambient light sensor, a particular lighting condition that is different from the plurality of lighting conditions; and
prompt the user to provide one or more additional iris samples of the user's iris to the iris scanner in the particular lighting condition upon determining an iris sample in the particular lighting condition is missing from the plurality of iris samples, or upon detecting an unsuccessful iris recognition attempt by the user to access the at least a part of the electronic device in the particular lighting condition.

2. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the iris scanner comprises an infrared camera and a light emitting diode, the infrared camera and the light emitting diode together configured to capture the one or more iris samples upon detecting at least one of user's eyes in a field of view of the infrared camera.

3. The electronic device of claim 2 , wherein the processor is further configured to cause the electronic device to:
prompt the user for providing an alternate authentication input upon capturing the one or more additional iris samples upon the occurrence of the second event; and
store the one or more captured additional iris samples in form of an iris template associated with the particular lighting condition if the alternate authentication input provided by the user is correct.

4. The electronic device of claim 3 , wherein the alternate authentication input comprises a pin number.

5. The electronic device of claim 2 , wherein the processor is further configured to cause the iris scanner to capture a plurality of cleanup shots of the user's iris and is further configured to store the plurality of cleanup shots in an iris template associated with the particular lighting condition.

6. The electronic device of claim 2 , wherein the iris scanner is further configured to capture each iris sample of the one or more additional iris samples by capturing a plurality of iris shots of the user's iris.

7. The electronic device of claim 2 , further comprising a camera module synchronized with the iris scanner, wherein the processor is configured to cause the electronic device to show a viewfinder image of the user's eyes to guide the user's eyes in the field of view of the infrared camera for capturing the one or more iris samples.

8. The electronic device of claim 7 , wherein the processor is configured to detect the unsuccessful iris recognition attempt by:
capturing at least one iris shot of the user's iris upon detecting an access attempt of the user for accessing at least the part of the electronic device; and
matching the at least one captured iris shot with an existing iris template associated with the particular lighting condition, wherein the unsuccessful iris recognition attempt is detected if a mismatch between the at least one iris shot and the existing iris template is greater than a pre-defined degree of mismatch.

9. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more additional iris samples of the user's iris comprises one or more iris samples of at least one of a left eye and a right eye of the user.

10. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the electronic device is a mobile phone.

11. A method, comprising:
prompting, during a set up process, a user to provide a plurality of iris samples in a plurality of lighting conditions to an iris scanner and storing the plurality of iris samples in a memory;
detecting an access attempt by the user to access at least a part of an electronic device;
measuring a particular lighting condition, by an ambient light sensor, that is different from the plurality of lighting conditions; and
prompting the user to provide one or more additional iris samples of the user's iris to the iris scanner of the electronic device in the particular lighting condition upon detecting an iris sample
in the particular lighting condition is missing from the plurality of iris samples in the memory, or upon detecting
an unsuccessful iris recognition attempt by the user in the particular lighting condition to access the at least a part of the electronic device.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising capturing the one or more additional iris samples in the particular lighting condition and storing the one or more captured iris samples in form of an iris template associated with the particular lighting condition.

13. The method of claim 12 , upon detecting the occurrence of the second event, further comprising:
prompting the user for providing an alternate authentication input to the electronic device for accessing at least the part of the electronic device upon capturing the one or more additional iris samples; and
storing the one or more captured iris samples in form of the iris template associated with the particular lighting condition if the alternate authentication input provided by the user is correct.

14. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:
capturing a plurality of cleanup shots of the user's iris; and
storing the plurality of cleanup shots in the iris template associated with the particular lighting condition.

15. The method of claim 12 , wherein capturing each iris sample of the one or more additional iris samples comprises capturing a plurality of iris shots of the user's iris.

16. The method of claim 12 , wherein capturing an iris sample of the one or more additional iris samples comprises,
providing a viewfinder image of user's eyes for guiding the user to adjust position of the user's eyes in a field of view of an infrared camera of the iris scanner.

17. The method of claim 11 , wherein detecting the unsuccessful iris recognition attempt comprises:
capturing at least one iris shot of the user's iris upon detecting the access attempt of the user for accessing at least the part of the electronic device; and
matching the at least one captured iris shot with an existing iris template associated with the particular lighting condition, wherein the unsuccessful iris recognition attempt is detected if a mismatch between the at least one iris shot and the existing iris template is greater than a pre-defined degree of mismatch.

18. The method of claim 11 , wherein the one or more iris additional samples of the user's iris comprises one or more iris samples of at least one of a left eye and a right eye of the user.

19. A computer program product comprising at least one computer-readable storage memory, the computer-readable storage memory comprising a set of instructions, which, when executed by one or more processors, cause an electronic device to at least perform:
prompting, during a set up process, a user to provide a plurality of iris samples in a plurality of lighting conditions to an iris scanner and storing the plurality of iris s

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Dass Shachindra

Classifications

• H04W12/06

  Authentication · CPC title

• H04N23/56

  provided with illuminating means · CPC title

• H04N23/71

  Circuitry for evaluating the brightness variation · CPC title

• H04N23/631

  Graphical user interfaces [GUI] specially adapted for controlling image capture or setting capture parameters · CPC title

• G06F21/32 Primary

  using biometric data, e.g. fingerprints, iris scans or voiceprints · CPC title