Biometric Access Control Unit

Executive Summary

Our customer is the world’s industry leader and innovator in the use of biometrics for access control and time and attendance for workforce management.
eInfochips was engaged as an extended engineering team for complete product development, testing and sustenance/maintenance of their new product. Our amplified offshore engagement model provided the customer with a time benefit of about 20% and a cost benefit of over 50%. We developed a full featured fingerprint authentication device to address access control and Time & Attendance requirements of any size anywhere around the world. Biometric Physical Access Control Device enhances authentication and security level as authentication is based on Biometric Identity of the user. This authentication module can be used in various cases like

  • Single door access control
  • Multi-tenant access control
  • Large enterprise access control
  • Time and Attendance management

Based on diverse technical capabilities eInfochips designed full featured next generation fingerprint reader device based on Texas Instruments' DaVinci™ Technology for customer. eInfochips successfully executed board design, firmware (embedded software), GUI and enabled backward compatibility for the product.

The Customer

Our customer is the world’s industry leader and innovator in the use of biometrics for access control and time and attendance for workforce management.
Their innovative solutions help the decision makers around the world to address their evolving security needs with the strongest form of multi-factor authentication available in the market today.

The Challenge

  • Design and Development of complete product from given specifications in short span of time for project completion.
  • Developing an industrial grade PV-TWIC version of the product incorporating closed loop thermal management system in the same form factor and enclosure
  • Incorporating attendance and access control facility into one product which addresses multiple needs for the customer.
  • Enabling access control unit for supporting multifactor security i.e. Biometric, Pin and Contactless Smart Card.
  • Customer had to demonstrate an alpha and beta release of their product at multiple events, so the basic functionality of the product had to be developed well before the actual product launch date

Design & Development
eInfochips' team has analyzed the requirement of product design which is of multilevel authentication from the specifications.
eInfochips is involved in complete Hardware design based on TI DaVinci™ DM6443 which includes design of

  • Motherboard
  • I/O boards
  • LCD and keyboard board

Along with this, the team was also involved in complete schematic, layout, fabrication and board bring-up. We have done firmware development which enables and includes design of

  • Audio driver, FPGA UART driver, RS485 driver, SD Card driver, USB Host controller driver, USB OTG driver, LCD driver, Keypad driver, LCD GUI, RTC driver, Wireless driver, Wigand driver
  • Audio/Video API
  • Firmware upgrade

Key aspects

  • As strong sensing is very important for biometric authentication, the sensor is very critical and eInfochips has done Sensor integration successfully for increasing effectiveness of the solution.
  • For incorporating biometric authentication we have enabled XDM compliance of various Biometric algorithms to run on DSP and integration of algorithms with ARM application
  • To make access control unit user friendly we have done complete LCD GUI development which also gives an advanced look to the system
  • Team eInfochips is associated with complete BSP development and has developed full BSP.

Embedded Development
eInfochips has done Embedded Development for this authentication device which made the product compact. All authentication modules are embedded on one board so there is no requirement of attaching any extra authentication module for multi factor authentication.
Software Development
eInfochips has developed various softwares and integrated then with main application. These Modules include Audio, Dynamic Message, Wigand, Embedded database, Smart Card, Time and Attendance, Functional Key, Wireless LAN, Temper, Firmware Upgrade etc.
We used .Net technology for Customer/Server architecture based PC software development.
QA and Testing
eInfochips is also involved in QA and System Testing for the biometric solution. Team eInfochips has followed test plan and executed the test successfully before the release of the product which made the release successful for the customer.

Technology

  • .Net
  • Processor: TI's DaVinci™ DM6443

The Benefit

  • Team eInfochips’ has enabled the customer in releasing the product as per schedule and executed the project saving 20% of project development cycle time
  • Our team has used their experience in various fields to execute this technically diverse project successfully
  • Accurate product development, QA and testing that has made the product success in the market
  • Sustaining and maintaining the product to help the customer provide better customer-service to their customers