Iris recognition apparatus and method

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION Viewing first FIG.
1 for an overview of the context in which the present invention may be found, it is seen that a human 10 is approaching a machine kiosk 12, which may be a bank ATM, an airline ticket dispensing machine, a security station, or another type of machine needing to recognize the people who want to use is or who pass by it, for example.
It will be understood that the kiosk 12 is merely exemplary, and that apparatus 12a embodying the present invention may be utilized in contexts other than a bank ATM.
For example and without limitation, the recognition apparatus 12a embodying the present invention might be utilized at an airport to identify persons who want to buy tickets, or passengers who are ticketed to board a particular aircraft, or to identify authorized airport personnel who have access to the baggage loading area or aircraft maintenance area of an airport.
Other contexts in which apparatus 12a embodying the present invention might be used are industrial, government, police, or military sites where access to the site or facility is to be controlled.
Such access can be controlled by reference to the identification of personnel by use of their unique and individual iris patterns.
Further considering FIG.
1, it is seen that the apparatus 12a within machine 12 includes a motion detector 14 so that the approach of the human 10 is detected.
This detection of an approaching person can a greeting image to be displayed on a display screen 16 (perhaps along with an audio greeting issued from a speaker 18).
Because of the greeting displayed on the screen 16 (possibly along with the audio greeting from the speaker 18) the human 10 is prompted to look toward this area of the apparatus 12a.
Adjacent to the screen 16 are located both an infrared detector 20 and a visible light fine-focus video camera 22.
The detector 20 and camera 22 are close together so that parallax is not significant between the points of view of these two devices