Ear Biometrics: A Survey on Ear Image Databases and Techniques for Ear Detection and Recognition

Identifying the people by using their ear is the emerging trend in the modern era. Biometrics deals with the procedure to identify people, by using their measurable, unique and permanent features such as fingerprint, iris, face, vein, DNA, hand writing, hand geometry and many more. Biometrics serves as integrated part of modern security systems. This paper discuss about the ear biometrics. Human ear is the unique and clearly visible trait that is permanent for his/her lifetime. The increasing age of human being affects very less on the ear. This paper provides a detailed survey of 16 most popular image databases available for ear biometrics, which will be helpful for the researchers on which they can perform the experiments. This paper includes a comparative study of techniques used for ear detection and ear recognition techniques. Current research work in ear biometrics is limited to database of images captured under certain conditions.