Patent ID: 8509495

Claim:
A method for identifying an individual in an IR image or IR video, the method comprising: collecting intensity values at N wavelength bands for each pixel in any of: an IR image and IR video, said intensity values being collected using a IR imaging system comprising an IR detector and an IR Illuminator, wherein said IR detector is a single IR detector, said intensity value comprising: I c ( j )=α∫ λ 1 λ 2 I s (λ)[ T G 2 (λ) R o (λ)+η R G (λ)] T L (λ) D (λ) dλ+I b , where j=1, . . . , N, such that j is the j th IR band from the illuminator that is illuminating, α is a constant that depends on an angle and distance from the illumination source, an attenuation of an IR wave in the air, and an integration time of the detecting device, I b is an intensity from a background light source such as that from the IR component of sunlight, I s (λ) is a calculated correspondence of a measured intensity, I m , such that, if the calculated intensity with a particular reflectance agrees with the object in the measured intensity, the correlation will be high (close to 1), otherwise the correlation will be small (close to 0 or negative), T L (λ) is a transmittance of the filter, R o (λ) is a reflectance of an object detected by the IR detection device, R o (λ) and T G (λ) are a reflectance and a transmittance of glass or other types of material between the target object and the illumination source and camera, otherwise R o (λ)=0 and T G (λ)=1, constant η is a measure of the percentage of light from the IR illuminator reflected from glass and received by the detector, otherwise η=0, and where T L (λ)=1, and D(λ) is a responsivity of the detection device; using said intensity values to identify pixels of human tissue in said IR image or said IR video; extracting a subcutaneous vein pattern from said identified human tissue; retrieving a reference vein pattern from a database; and comparing said extracted subcutaneous vein pattern with said reference vein pattern to identify the individual in said IR image.