Professor Ana Fred and PDEEC students Hugo Silva and André Lourenço won the 2012 edition of the InovPortugal competition, with the proposal “VITALIDI: Non-intrusive identification with electrocardiographic signals”. The initiative rewards innovative ideas with great commercialization and internationalization potential.

Abstract: Conventional biometric recognition systems require the user to put the finger on a reader (e.g. fingerprint), to speak to a microphone (e.g. voice), or to look at a camera (e.g. face or iris). They can’t detect whether the person is alive, can be affected by lighting conditions or noise, and can be deceived using artificial replicas such as photos, gummy fingers, among others. Electrocardiographic (ECG) signals overcome some of these shortcomings, but measuring them at the chest with several probes, using conductive paste or gel, is cumbersome. The patented technology of VITALIDI allows the ECG to be continuously acquired in a non-intrusive way at the hand palms or fingers using dry electrodes, conductive textiles and other materials, enabling the system to be integrated into virtually any everyday object with which the person interacts with (e.g. game station controller, steering wheel of a car, gym machine, laptop, mobile phone, etc.).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_0nlQuq5Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaOwEXQWcN8