Patent ID: 8325996

Claim:
A method for locating an iris in an image of an eye, comprising: locating a pupil in the image; detecting positions of intensity steps of pixels located on a line passing through the pupil and transition zones between the iris and a cornea, on either side of the pupil, wherein the positions of the transitions are detected by calculating an energy level of high-frequency components of a Fourier spectrum obtained by a fast Fourier transform on a gate-type mobile window, applied to intensities of pixels located on the line, and searching for positions at which the high-frequency energy is locally maximal; determining a center and a radius of a circle passing through the detected positions of the transitions; generating a signal indicative of a location of the iris in the image of the eye based on the determined center and radius of the circle; and outputting the generated signal to an iris recognition module, the locating, detecting, determining and generating being performed by one or more configured devices.