Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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,TITLE: BIOMETRIC INPUT DEVICE FOR SECURITY SYSTEM
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to an input device
for a security system which incorporates a biometric sensor
for increased control over authorization of entry into the
premises in which the security system is located.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Security systems are becoming widespread in use with
most commercial establishments and many residential
establishments having security systems installed. Such
security systems generally include a control panel which
controls the overall operation of the system, one or more
input devices such as keypad controllers for user access to
the system and various detectors and sensors. The control
panel is generally mounted in an area of restricted access,
such as a utility room or basement, and contains the system
electronics, back-up power sources, and may include an
interface for remote monitoring and two way communication
over telephone lines or other communication channels.
Security systems are generally divided into several zones
or areas of protection and each of these zones generally
has one or more detection devices or sensors such as motion
detectors, door or window contacts, glass break detectors,
or shock sensors connected to it. In some security
systems, smoke detectors or other fire detection devices
may also be connected to the control panel.
Security systems generally have one or more input
devices such as keypad controllers or card swipe readers
etc., which are used by the user to send input to the
security system. Many input devices such as keypad
controllers are also used by the user to instruct the
security system. The keypad controller may be used to send
commands to the system to control the operation of the
system and may also display system information. Such
keypad controllers generally have a status display which
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.may include either individual indicators, such as light
emitting diodes or may include a LCD or LED display, which
is capable of displaying a number of alpha-numeric
characters used to display simple messages regarding the
status and operation of the system. Recently, graphical
controllers have also been proposed having a graphical
display screen capable of displaying a floor plan of the
premises at which the security system is installed. Such
graphical controllers may also include touch screen
technology or user input.
The input device such as the keypad controller is also
used by the user to arm and disarm the security system.
Each user of a security system with a keypad controller is
given a unique personal identification number or PIN, which
is generally a sequence of numbers which are entered by the
user, in order, on a numeric keypad. V~h.en arming the
system, the user enters their PIN at which time the system
will be armed and will generally provide a delay time to
enable the user to exit the premises at which the system is
located before the system becomes fully armed. Upon
entering a premise having an armed security system, the
user would enter their PIN at which time the security
system would be disarmed. During disarming of the security
system, there is generally a delay time to enable the user
to enter their P2N before the system will go into alarm
mode.
There are many instances where a user will forget
their PIN or enter an incorrect PIN into the keypad
controller. Many controllers permits multiple attempts to
enter the PIN through the keypad. This will allow the user
to correctly interact with the system in those
circumstances where the user has entered an incorrect PIN.
However even allowing multiple attempts will not help a
user who has forgotten their PIN. It would be useful in
such circumstances to utilize a unique characteristic of
the user to identify the user to the security system. Such
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.characteristic could be a unique biometric characteristic
such as a fingerprint, retina scan, voice print etc. In
addition there are certain security installations which may
require a higher level of security. In such installations
the use of unique biometric characteristic in-place of or
in addition to a PIN or security card would be of benefit.
BUi~RY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides for a biometric
~10 input device for a security system. The biometric input
device comprises a biometric sensor for sensing and input
of biometric data, an image capture module for capturing
and storage of the inputted biometric data from the
biometric sensor, and an input/output module for passing
the captured biometric data to a control panel and
receiving data from the control panel.
In an aspect of the invention there is provided a
security system for controlling access to a premises. The
security system comprises a control panel for overall
control of the security system, and one or more input
devices for allowing users to interact with the security
system. One or more of such input devices is a biometric
input device capable of sensing biometric data from a user
and capable of passing said sensed biometric data to the
control panel for comparison against a database of
biometric data of authorized users.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Preferred embodiments of the present invention are
illustrated in the attached drawings, wherein:
Figure 1 is a schematic view of a security system,
embodying the input device of the present invention;
Figure 2 is a schematic view of a first embodiment of
an input device of the present invention illustrating the
operation of the input device;
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Figure 3 is a schematic view of a second embodiment of
an input device of present invention illustrating the
operation of the input device; and
Figure 4 is a schematic view of the fourth embodiment
of an input device of the present invention illustrating
the interaction between the input device and the control
panel.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
A typical security system embodying the present
invention is illustrated in Figure 1. The security system
comprises a control panel 10 which controls the operation
of the overall security system. A number of sensors or
detection devices 12, utilized for monitoring a zone or
area of protection, are connected to the control panel in a
typical manner. Detection devices 12 may be any of the
commonly utilized detection devices such as motion
detectors, door contacts, glass break detectors, shock
sensors, fire detectors, water detectors, etc. The
detection devices 12 in Figure 1 are illustrated as being
hard wired to the control panel 10, however, wireless
technology is in common use and any of the detection
devices 12 could use wireless communication between the
detection devices 12 and the control panel 10. The
security system may be capable of reporting to a remote
monitoring station 14, utilizing any of the commonly
employed methods of communication such as utilizing a
telephone dialer 16 sending messages to the remote
monitoring station 14 over the local telephone system 18.
In some situations, the connection between the control
panel 10 and the remote monitoring location 14 may also be
wireless, utilizing cellular telephone technology or other
means of wireless communication. The system can also use
other communication arrangements such as two way cable
systems. The control panel also includes an interface 20
for connection to a sounding device 22 for activation in an
alarm or emergency situation.
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The control panel 10 includes logic and programming
modules which control the overall operation of the system
including the processing of the biometric data from the
input device as will be described below.
An input device for allowing the user to interact with
the security system is also connected to the control panel.
Many such input devices are presently in use including
keypad controllers, card swipe readers, etc. specific to
security systems, which may be hardwired to the control
panel or may communicate with the control panel using
suitable wireless technology. As shown in the figure, in a
preferred embodiment, the input device with a biometric
input is connected to the control panel 10 for allowing the
user to interface with the security system, to program the
system and control the operation of the system and for
displaying the status of the system and its various
components. As noted above while the input device is
preferably a keypad controller any suitable input device
for allowing a user to interact with and in particular
enter access codes for the security system may be utilized_
Figure 2 illustrates a first embodiment of an input
device of the present invention 30 for use with a security
system. The input device allows the user to interact Wlth
the controller 30 using biometric data. The biometric data
may be any biometric data which may be easily obtained from
the user. Such biometric data may be a finger print, voice
recognition, retina scan, or other easily measured
biometric characteristic. Preferably, the biometric
characteristic is a finger print, more preferably a thumb
print. The input device is provided with a scanner capable
of capturing an image of the thumb print of the user. One
such scanner is that manufactured by Siemens and sold under
the trademark FINGERTIP. This scanner is a CMOS sensor
which is built around a capacitive sensing circuit with the
sensor pixel array being one plate and the surface of the
skin of the finger being the other plate. The user would
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,place their thumb on the thumb print scanner to activate
the controller 30. The thumb print of the user would be
scanned in and captured as an image. This image may then
be passed to the control panel along the data bus. The
control panel in the embodiment illustrated in Figure 2 is
provided with a biometric interface module to interact with
the input module and pass the image captured by the input
module onto the processing circuitry. The image captured
from the input module is processed by the sensor data
processing and compared by a data comparator against an
authorized user account database maintained in non-volatile
RAM. If the image captured by the input module matches an
image maintained within the authorized user account
database than the control processor of control panel
carries out the instructions programmed in the control
panel. These instructions may include opening the door to
allow the user access to the premises at which the security
system is installed or may unlock a keypad which then
allows the user to interact directly with the security
system.
A second embodiment of an input device for a security
system of the present invention is illustrated in figure 3.
In this embodiment of the invention the input device
includes both the biometric sensor such as a thumb print
scanner as well as a means for allowing additional user
input. One purpose of permitting the additional user input
is to increase the security of the system. By requiring
additional user input, access to the system can be
restricted to situations where both the biometric sensor as
well as the additional input correctly identifies an
authorized person.
If either of the biometric data or the additional user
input matches the stored data, but the other does not,
various options may be made available to the user. For
example, in these situations, the user may be given limited
access to the system. The system may also flay the event
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.and display a trouble message. This flag and trouble
message could also be passed on to a remote monitoring
location. The system may also be programmed to store the
incomplete access data for future reference and retrieval.
The actions which the system could take upon an incomplete
authorization could depend upon the needs of the location
at which the system is located and those of skill in the
art could easily adopt the system and provide it with the
required functions and actions.
The means for additional user input may be any means
commonly used in the security art. Such means may be a
keypad for entering in an access identification number or
PIN or may be a card swipe for reading a magnetic stripe on
a security access card. Other means for additional user
input would be known to those skilled in the security
system art.
The input device of the embodiment of Figure 3 takes
the image from the biometric sensor and passes it through
to the control panel for comparison against the authorized
user database similar to the first embodiment. The input
device may simply pass the captured image data and the
additional user input as separate discrete data. In this
type of setup both of the individual elements of data may
be compared against the authorized user ID database to
determine if both sets of data match entries in the
database. Alternatively, the additional user input such as
the PIN entered on a keypad may be used as a pointer to
point to the location in the database where the image of
the user is stored for comparison with the image captured
by the biometric sensor. By utilizing the PIN as a data
pointer, the comparison of the captured image with the
image stored in the database is much simplified and would
require less processing power as it would not be necessary
for the data comparator to compare the captured image
against every image in the database.
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To increases the security of the security system the
input device may encrypt the data from the biometric sensor
for transmission to the control panel. This encryption
could utilize an algorithm in which the additional user
input is used in the algorithm to encrypt the data. This
would be of particular benefit for highly sensitive
security installations where any data being transmitted
would have to be encrypted. This type of encryption of
data would also be useful in situations where the input
device and control panel are not hardwired to one another
but utilize wireless technology for transmission of data
back and forth.
Once the data has been passed to the control panel the
control panel could compare the encrypted data with
encrypted data stored in the database. Alternatively, the
control panel could process the data to decrypt it and then
compare the decrypted data with the data in the database.
Once again, in order to improve processing capability, the
additional user input may be utilized as a pointer to point
to the storage location in the database for the stored data
which is to be compared with the captured image.
A third embodiment of an input device of the present
invention is illustrated in figure 4. In the security
system illustrated the input device is the combination of
a keypad controller and a biometric sensor. The keypad
controller 32 is provided with a numeric keypad having
individual keys 34 and a status indicating means for
providing feedback to a user on the status of the system.
The status indicating means can be any of the commonly
employed means to provide audio or visual feed back. For
example, the status indicating means can be a means of
providing audio feedback by providing a speaker to play
back prerecorded messages or system generated messages
corresponding to the status of the system. Alternatively,
the status indicating means can provide visual feedback
through the use of indicator lights, LCD or LED displays
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,capable of displaying alpha-numeric characters or displays
capable of displaying graphical images. In the embodiment
illustrated in figure 4, the keypad controller 32 is
provided with an LCD or LED display area 36 for visual
display of system messages and feedback during key entry on
the keypad, although as noted above, other status
indicating means may be employed.
Similar to the embodiment illustrated in figure 3
described above, the input device of figure 4 utilizes a
combination of the biometric data and the additional user
input. Once again, preferably the biometric data from the
image capture and the user input from the keypad is
encrypted to form a unique user ID. This unique user ID is
then passed along the data bus to the control panel where
the biometric interface module compares the encrypted user
ID with an authorized user account database.
The biometric input devices as described above, may be
utilized for initialization of the image database. The
initial image capture from this thumbprint scanner could be
accomplished utilizing a special maintenance or service
code to store the scanned image in the image database. The
particular and unique access code or PIN associated with
this image could then be entered in and stored in the
database in the forms as described above.
The use of the combination of a biometric input and
the access code may also be utilized to grant different
levels of access to individual users. For example, a group
of users could be given a common access code, and then the
biometric input data would be utilized to differentiate
each of the users having the common access code and to
regulate the level of access to the system which the user
would be allowed.
The embodiments of the invention described above in
which the image data is stored at the control panel and the
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keypad is merely used for image capture and transfer of the
captured image to the control panel provide for numerous
other benefits to the security system in addition to the
increased level of security. As the image is processed and
stored at the control panel, rather than at the keypad,
such a security system is amenable to multiple keypads for
multiple access points. Each of the keypads would be
provided with a biometric input capability with the image
from the biometric input being shipped over the data bus to
the control panel in the manner as described. above. In
addition, the control panels generally have much more
processing power than keypads and utilizing this processing
power of the control panel allows for biometric input at
the keypad at a reasonable cost, as it is not necessary to
provide each of the individual keypads with increased
processing power.
The processing of the image data at the control panel
also allows for storage of the original scanned image when
the user is attempting to access the security system. This
may be of importance in a high security application where
it would be of benefit to maintain the raw data from each
access of the security system.
The processing and storage of the image data at the
control panel also allows for simpler maintenance and
upkeep of the image database, as new users could easily be
added to the image database in a manner as described above.
In addition, users which no longer have access to the
security system could have their associated images and
access codes deleted from the database by a supervisor
having appropriate levels of access. Alternatively, the
image may be maintained in the database to enable logging
of attempts by the former user to gain access to the
system, but the image in the database would be flagged for
non-access to the system.
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The input device of the present invention with the
incorporated biometric sensor allows for increased control
over authorization of user access to security systems using
the input device. In some installations, such an input
device allows for very specific access to the system by
utilizing a unique biometric identifier of a user without
requiring a user to remember and enter an authorization
code. In the installations, increased levels of security
access may be provided by requiring a user to input a
parameter such as an authorization code or card swipe in
addition to the biometric data to gain access to the
system. In other situations, the additional parameter may
used as a pointer to speed up the process of matching the
biometric data from the sensor to the stored biometric
data. The additional parameter may also be used in an
encryption algorithm to increase the security of the
system.
Although various preferred embodiments of the present
invention have been described herein in detail, it will be
appreciated by those skilled in the art, that variations
may be made thereto without departing from the spirit of
the invention or the scope of the appended claims.
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