The effective use of the one-class SVM classifier for handwritten signature verification based on writer-independent parameters

•We propose handwritten signature verification for writer independent parameters.•We propose to design HSVS system using only genuine signatures using OC-SVM.•Applying a soft threshold in order to reduce the misclassification of the OC-SVM.•Combination scheme is proposed through versus distances used into the OC-SVM kernel.•Competitive results are obtained comparatively to the state of the art.

The limited number of writers and genuine signatures constitutes the main problem for designing a robust Handwritten Signature Verification System (HSVS). We propose, in this paper, the use of One-Class Support Vector Machine (OC-SVM) based on writer-independent parameters, which takes into consideration only genuine signatures and when forgery signatures are lack as counterexamples for designing the HSVS. The OC-SVM is effective when large samples are available for providing an accurate classification. However, available handwritten signature samples are often reduced and therefore the OC-SVM generates an inaccurate training and the classification is not well performed. In order to reduce the misclassification, we propose a modification of decision function used in the OC-SVM by adjusting carefully the optimal threshold through combining different distances used into the OC-SVM kernel. Experimental results conducted on CEDAR and GPDS handwritten signature datasets show the effective use of the proposed system comparatively to the state of the art.