New
The tech is being tested at the Cyber Centre in Fredericton
A team of researchers is looking at the next big step in security authentication.
Erik Scheme is working on a project that would use a person’s gait — their manner of walking — to identify them.
Scheme, the associate director of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of New Brunswick, said the project involves using pressure-sensitive floor tiles to capture and recognize how someone walks.
Scheme said everyone’s gait is different based on multiple factors including stride length, weight and the way someone’s foot rolls from heel to toe.
“It’s a really rich source of information that provides really unique information across individuals,” he said. “Somebody might have the same size foot, but everybody has different characteristics.”
The technology is being tested in a lab at UNB with two rows of six pressure-sensitive tiles. When participants walk over these titles, the technology measures the person’s gait and connects it to their identity.
The tiles are also being tested in a real world environment at the Cyber Centre in Fredericton’s Knowledge Park, said Scheme.
Those who have given consent walk over the tiles while going into work. Then, they use the two current modes of authentication at the turnstile — card swipe and palm scan — which then matches the person to the gait.
Alternatives needed
Scheme said this type of technology wouldn’t have been possible a few years ago without the advancements in artificial intelligence.
But with all of the other types of biometric technology, such as fingerprinting and facial recognition, why add another? Scheme said research is always trying to push forward and overcome challenges with existing technology.
“The world has been looking for other alternatives for biometric authentication systems,” said Scheme.
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For example, COVID-19 revealed some of the challenges with pre-existing tech, said Scheme, such as aversion to high-touch sensors and facial recognition’s struggle to identify people wearing masks.
But Scheme said no biometrics are fully resilient, including this one.
He said there are always going to be factors, such as major injuries and mobility aids, that limit these authentication systems. But he thinks the technology can adapt to changes that happen gradually such as aging, or the change in gait that might come with fatigue.
“We’re quite confident that we can actually build models that are resilient to that and keep up with those changes over time,” he said.
“A catastrophic sort of acute injury … might be a challenge. But … nobody’s really been able to address that, because there has just been a lack of data.”
‘A great learning opportunity’
Mayssa Rekik, an intern on the project, is completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Carthage in Tunisia, and this summer was her first time in a research lab tackling real world problems.
“It’s a great learning opportunity to be able to do this before you graduate,” said Rekik.
She got involved with the project through the Mitacs Globalink internship, which pairs international undergraduates with specific research projects in Canada. The program allows students to see what the project is before applying.
For Rekik, she saw this project as something that aligns with how she sees her future career.
Eve MacDonald, another intern who just graduated from UNB with an electrical engineering degree, said much of her role on the project has been looking into characteristics that would affect someone’s gait.
One of the biggest ones, said MacDonald, is footwear. The participants bring two pairs of their own shoes and they also wear a standard shoe given to all participants, she said.
MacDonald said although the pressure differences from footwear are a challenge, she said overcoming that is looking promising.
Daily variables
While age, weight, injuries and footwear would all affect someone’s gait, there are also some things that people might not think of, said MacDonald.
“I tried to think of daily activities you might do that change your gait. So examples would be carrying a bag, texting on your phone, actually, even your mood impacts how you walk,” said MacDonald.
Another thing she was interested in looking at was whether holding and drinking from a cup would affect a person’s gait, since people will sometimes go to work with a coffee in hand.
So, she designed an experiment that explored those different tasks to see if the technology would still be able to recognize a person despite those variables. She is still collecting data on that one.
MacDonald said she sees potential for this technology in the real world because it’s a more private form of biometric authentication.
Future market potential
“With facial recognition … people see it really as part of their identity and a lot of people don’t like having that information captured as well as stored,” she said.
“But when it comes to a footprint … you can’t really recognize someone based on a foot, like the way you walk in the pressure sense. So I think it will be that people will kind of move towards it just because of that aspect.”
Scheme said he also sees a future where this technology could be a top competitor for other biometric authenticators based on the performance of the tech so far.
He said it will depend on commercial partners where this technology ends up being used, but there are some environments that he could see this technology making sense for, including health care settings for long-term analysis or in locations where people might be wearing a lot of protective gear or clothing they wouldn’t be able to quickly take off.
It could also be used for just regular access control in a place similar to the Cyber Centre, he said.
“We’re early in the innovation curve for this technology, compared to other biometrics that are now integrated into your smartphone and things like that. But the performance has been very strong and we’re learning a lot as we go,” said Scheme.
“As a researcher, we’re interested in the results they generalize beyond just this one single project. … But we are quite hopeful in terms of the technology as being a new alternative for the right niche applications.”
