Hybrid fusion of score level and adaptive fuzzy decision level fusions for the finger-knuckle-print based authentication

•Developed adaptive fuzzy decision level fusion for FKP based authentication.•Also developed hybrid of score level and adaptive fuzzy decision level.•Showed that the hybrid fusion outperforms the component level fusion (score and adaptive fuzzy decision level fusion).•The improvement is not only in terms of error rates but also in terms of the time taken.

This paper presents the hybrid of the adaptive fuzzy decision level fusion and the score level fusion for finger-knuckle-print (FKP) based authentication to improve over the individual fusion methods. The scores obtained from the fusion of the left index (LI) and the left middle (LM) and those obtained from the fusion of the right index (RI) and the right middle (RM) FKP are fused at the fuzzy decision level. The uncertainty in the local decisions made by the individual score level fusion methods is addressed by treating the error rates as fuzzy sets. The operating points (thresholds) are adapted to accommodate the varying the cost of false acceptance rate using the hybrid PSO algorithm that ensures the desired level of security. The error rates associated with the operating points are converted into the fuzzy domain by triangular membership functions and the alpha-cuts are applied on the membership functions for the better representation of uncertainty. The global fuzzy error rates are defuzzified using total distance criterion (TDC). The rigorous experimental results indicate that the hybrid fusion is superior to the component level fusion methods (score level and decision level fusion).