SVM-based speaker verification system for match-on-card and its hardware implementation

Using biometrics to verify a person's identity has several advantages over the present practice of personal identification numbers (PINs) and passwords. To gain maximum security in a verification system using biometrics, the computation of the verification as well as the storing of the biometric pattern has to take place in a smart card. However, there is an open issue of integrating biometrics into a smart card because of its limited resources (processing power and memory space). In this paper, we propose a speaker verification algorithm using a support vector machine (SVM) with a very few features, and implemented it on a 32-bit small card. The proposed algorithm can reduce the required memory space by a factor of more than 100 and can be executed in real-time. Also, we propose a hardware design for the algorithm on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based platform. Based on the experimental results, our SVM solution can provide superior performance over typical speaker verification solutions. Furthermore, our FPGA-based solution can achieve a speed-up of 50 times over a software-based solution.