Constructing a safety and security system by medical applications of a fast face recognition optical parallel correlator

Medical errors and patient safety have always received a great deal of attention, as they can be critically life-threatening and significant matters. Hospitals and medical personnel are trying their utmost to avoid these errors. Currently in the medical field, patients' record is identified through their PIN numbers and ID cards. However, for patients who cannot speak or move, or who suffer from memory disturbances, alternative methods would be more desirable, and necessary in some cases. The authors previously proposed and fabricated a specially-designed correlator called FARCO (Fast Face Recognition Optical Correlator) based on the Vanderlugt Correlator 1 , which operates at the speed of 1000 faces/s 2,3,4 . Combined with high-speed display devices, the four-channel processing could achieve such high operational speed as 4000 faces/s. Running trial experiments on a 1-to-N identification basis using the optical parallel correlator, we succeeded in acquiring low error rates of 1 % FMR and 2.3 % FNMR. In this paper, we propose a robust face recognition system using the FARCO for focusing on the safety and security of the medical field. We apply our face recognition system to registration of inpatients, in particular children and infants, before and after medical treatments or operations. The proposed system has recorded a higher recognition rate by multiplexing both input and database facial images from moving images. The system was also tested and evaluated for further practical use, leaving excellent results. Hence, our face recognition system could function effectively as an integral part of medical system, meeting these essential requirements of safety, security and privacy.