THE FINGERPRINT IDENTIFICATION OF ATTENDANCE ANALYSIS

& MANAGEMENT

LEE GUAN HENG

(Software Engineering)

This project is submitted in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Computer Science with Honours

Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology

UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA SARAWAK
2005

DECLARATION

No portion of work referred to in this report has submitted in support of an application for
another degree or qualification of this or any other universities or institution of higher
learning.

_____________________

_______________

(LEE GUAN HENG)

(Date)

ii

ACKNOWLEGEMENT

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Wang Yin Chai
for his guidance and motivation in making this project a success. I wish to thank him for
being very patient and helpful to me throughout the development process of the system.
Apart from that, I am indebted to my examiner, Mr. Sylvester Arnab for his effort in
helping me to improve the report and providing useful suggestions in the system that has
been developed.
Finally, my thank goes to my friends who have given my full cooperation, advice
and support, without which I could not have completed this project.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

iv

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF TABLES

xiii

ABSTRACT

xiv

ABSTRAK

xv

CHAPTER 1: AN OVERVIEW
1.1

Introduction

1.2

Problem Statement

1.3

Objective

1.4

Scope

1.5

Expected Outcome

1.6

Significant

1.6.1

Contribution to Administrator/Lecturer

1.6.2

Contribution to Student

1.7

Outline of Project Report

iv

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1

Introduction

Part 1: Reviewing Biometric Technologies

2.2

Overview of Biometric

2.3

Biometric Technologies

2.3.1

Introduction

2.3.2

Advantages of Biometric Technologies

2.3.3

Biometric Identification Technologies

2.3.3.1 Facial Identification

2.3.3.2 Iris/Retina Identification

2.3.3.3 Hand Geometry Identification

2.3.3.4 Fingerprint Identification

10

Comparison of Biometric Identification

10

2.3.4
2.4

History of Fingerprint

11

2.5

Overview of Fingerprint

12

2.6

Fingerprint Identification

12

2.7

Fingerprint Matching Process

13

2.7.1

Fingerprint Identification System Architecture

13

2.7.2

Fingerprint Matching Methods

13

2.7.2.1 Minutiae Matching

14

2.7.2.2 Pattern Matching

15

Part 2: Reviewing Existing Attendance Management System

2.8

Attendance Management System

17

2.9

2.8.1

Attendance Management System 1.0

18

2.8.2

ARCHNET Attendance Management System (AMS)

20

2.8.3

Duvetdays Attendance Management Software

22

Summary

23

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
3.1

Introduction

24

3.2

System Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

24

3.3

Summary

28

CHAPTER 4: SYSTEM ANALYSIS

4.1

4.2

Introduction

29

4.1.1

29

Purpose

Requirement Specification

29

4.2.1

Administrator Requirement

30

4.2.2

Student Requirement

31

4.3

Hardware Requirements

34

4.4

Software Requirements

34

4.5

Summary

35

CHAPTER 5: SYSTEM DESIGN

5.1

Introduction

36

5.2

System Architecture (Data Flow Diagram)

36

vi

5.3

5.2.1

Context Diagram of Proposed System

36

5.2.2

Diagram 0

38

5.2.3

Child Diagram

39

5.2.3.1 Process 1.0 Login

39

5.2.3.2 Process 2.0 Register New Member

40

5.2.3.3 Process 3.0 Add New Subject

41

5.2.3.4 Process 4.0 Register Subject

41

5.2.3.5 Process 5.0 Check In

42

5.2.3.6 Process 6.0 View Attendance Status

43

5.2.3.7 Process 7.0 View Attendance Report

44

5.2.3.8 Process 8.0 Search Students Details

45

5.2.3.9 Process 9.0 Search Subjects Details

45

Data Dictionary

46

5.3.1

Data Elements

46

5.3.2

Data Store

47

5.4

Normalization

47

5.5

Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)

49

5.6

Database Design

49

5.7

Summary

51

CHAPTER 6: SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION

6.1

Introduction

53

6.2

System Configuration

53

vii

6.3

6.4

6.5

6.2.1

Installing Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0

53

6.2.2

Installing Microsoft Access

54

6.2.3

Installing Biokit SDK

54

System Decomposition

55

6.3.1

Login Module

56

6.3.2

Register As Member Module

57

6.3.3

Add New Subject Module

58

6.3.4

Register Subject Module

59

6.3.5

Check In Module

60

6.3.6

View Attendance Report Module

62

Fingerprint Encryption and Matching Features

65

6.4.1

Registration Feature

65

6.4.2

Matching Feature

65

Summary

66

CHAPTER 7: SYSTEM TESTING & EVALUATION

7.1

Introduction

67

7.2

Objectives

67

7.3

Specification Testing

67

7.3.1

Functional Testing

66

7.3.2

Usability Testing

69

7.3.2.1 Student

70

Graphical User Interface (GUI) Testing

70

7.3.3

viii

7.4

System Limitation

71

7.5

Summary

72

CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSION & FUTURE WORKS

8.1

Introduction

73

8.2

Achievements

73

8.3

Problem Faced

75

8.4

Future Enhancement

75

8.4.1

75

8.5

Intranet/Local Network System

Summary

76

REFERENCES

77

APPENDIX
Appendix A: Formal Attendance Sheet

79

Appendix B: Questionnaire

80

Appendix C: Data Dictionary

83

Appendix D: Data Elements

89

Appendix E: Database Design

91

Appendix F: Evaluation Form

92

Appendix G: Algorithm for Fingerprint Matching

94

Appendix H: Sample of Questionnaire Forms from User

96

Appendix I: Sample of Evaluation Forms from Student

97

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1

Fingerprint Identification Architecture

13

Figure 2.2

Enrollments with Minutiae Points

14

Figure 2.3

Verification Using Minutiae Points Algorithm

15

Figure 2.4

Enrollment with Pattern-based Algorithm

16

Figure 2.5

Verification using Pattern-based Algorithm

17

Figure 2.6

Attendance Report for Attendance Management System

18

1.0
Figure 2.7

Printing Report Features

19

Figure 2.8

Interface for Attendance Management System 1.0

19

Figure 2.9

An Incoming Employee Attendance Interface

20

Figure 2.10

An Outgoing Employee Attendance Interface

21

Figure 2.11

An Attendance Report Preview

21

Figure 2.12

Attributes of Attendance Data Setting Interface

22

Figure 2.13

Viewing the Attendance Record

23

Figure 3.1

The System Development Life Cycle

25

Figure 4.1

Percentage of Student for Each Problem

32

Figure 4.2

Percentage of Student who satisfied the Current

32

Attendance Management System.

Figure 4.3

Percentage of Student who has personally Use or

Knowledge about Fingerprint-based System

33

Figure 4.4

Percentage of Student who wants Viewing Personal

33

Attendance History and Status Feature to be implemented

Figure 5.1

Context Diagram of Proposed System, FAMAS

36

Figure 5.2

Diagram 0 for FAMAS

38

Figure 5.3

Process 1.0 Login Child Diagram

39

Figure 5.4

Process 2.0 Register New Member Child Diagram

40

Figure 5.5

Process 3.0 Add New Subject

41

Figure 5.6

Process 4.0 Register Subject

41

Figure 5.7

Process 5.0 Check In Child Diagram

42

Figure 5.8

Process 6.0 View Attendance Status Child Diagram

43

Figure 5.9

Process 7.0 View Attendance Report Child Diagram

44

Figure 5.10

Process 8.0 Search Students Detail Child Diagram

45

Figure 5.11

Process 9.0 Search Subjects Details

45

Figure 5.12

Relation Schema for FAMAS system

48

Figure 5.13

Entity Relationship Diagram for FAMAS

49

Figure 6.1

System Module for FAMAS

55

Figure 6.2

Login Module

56

Figure 6.3

Main Page of FAMAS System

57

Figure 6.4

Register as Member Module

58

Figure 6.5

Add New Subject Module

59

Figure 6.6

Register Subject Module

60

Figure 6.7

Check In Module

61

xi

Figure 6.8

View Attendance History and Status

62

Figure 6.9

View Attendance Report Module

63

Figure 6.10

Printing Attendance Report

64

Figure 6.11

Attendance Report Summary

64

Figure 7.1

System Functionality Survey Result

68

Figure 7.2

System Usability Survey Result

70

Figure 7.3

GUI Design Survey Result

71

xii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1

Comparison of Biometric Identifications

11

Table 5.1

Data Dictionary for FAMAS

46

Table 5.2

Data element for FAMAS

47

Table 5.3

Data Store for FAMAS

47

xiii

ABSTRACT

The Fingerprint Attendance Management System (FAMAS) is a student attendance

management system for university applied with fingerprint technology. The system is able
to manage the student daily attendance. There are five major modules implemented in this
system which is Student Information Module, Subject Information Module, Subject
Registration Module, Attendance Management Module, and Attendance Report Module. In
Student Information Module, it is allows to add, edit and delete student information with
navigation and search features. Administrator/lecturer can add, edit and delete subject
information in Subject Information Module. This module is used to allow administrator
select a class in attendance management module. For convenience purpose, Subject
Registration Module was implemented to allow student register available subject in the
system. With this feature, administrator can view the list of students who are taken the
particular subject. Attendance Management Module is a module where the students
attendance has been recorded. The fingerprint technology is applied in this module that
captured and template of fingerprint from database is compare. There is a checking
attendance status feature in this module who is request from students for know their
currently attendance status. Besides, reporting the students attendance records has been
implemented in Attendance Report Module. Administrator can print out the each class
attendance report or export it into html format for future checking purpose.

xiv

ABSTRAK

Fingerprint Attendance Management System (FAMAS) merupakan suatu sistem

pegurusan kehadiran pelajar bagi universiti dengan mengaplikasi teknologi cap jari.
Sistem ini mampu meguruskan kehadiran pelajar harian. Ia terdiri daripada lima utama
modul iaitu Modul Maklumat Pelajar, Modul Maklumat Subjek, Modul Pendaftaran
Subjek, Modul Pegurusan Kehadiran dan Modul Laporan Kehadiran. Dalam Modul
Maklumat Pelajar, ia membenarkan tambah, edit dan gugur seseorang maklumat pelajar di
samping cir-ciri navigasi dan mencari. Pentadbir/Pensyarah dapat menambah,mengedit
and menggugurkan sesuatu maklumat subjek melalui Modul Maklumat Subjek. Modul ini
digunakan bagi membenarkan pensyarah memilih satu kuliah dalan Modul Pengurusan
Kehadiran. Untuk tujuan kemudahan, Modul Pendaftaran Subjek diimplementasikan untuk
membenarkan pelajar mendaftar subjek yang sedia ada dalam sistem ini. Dengan adanya
ciri ini, pensyarah dapat menyemak senarai pelajar yang mendaftar subjek tertentu. Modul
Pengurusan Kehadiran ialah suatu modul yang mana kehadiran pelajar direkodkan. Cap
jari teknologi diaplikasikan dalam modul ini dengan mengambil dan membandingkan cap
jari pelajar daripada pangkalan data. Ia terdapat penyemakan status kehadiran ciri dalam
modul ini yang mana diminta daripada pelajarbagi mengetahui status kehadiran dari
semasa

ke

semasa.

Selain

itu,

laporan

mengenai

kehadiran

pelajar

telah

diimplementasikan dalam Modul Laporan Kehadiran. Pensyarah dapat mencetak suatu

kehadiran kelas mahupun eksport laporan ini
penyemakan pada masa hadapan.

xv

dalam bentuk html fail bagi tujuan

CHAPTER 1: AN OVERVIEW

1.1

Introduction
Today, Electronic Attendance or also called as E-attendance is well known by

the entire world. It functions in an accurate way on recording the working hours which
is important for some particular system such as payroll system. Besides that, Eattendance provides a better data integrity and ease of use for users to manage. It works
fast and accurate in terms of processing performance. As for this project, The
Fingerprint Identification for Attendance Analysis and Management works as an Eattendance concept but in the other way, which is using the fingerprint application to
identify and recording the student daily attendance for each lecture they have attended.
Traditionally, the student attendance now is taken in a manual way which is
either using the formal or informal paper attendance sheet. The manually taken student
attendance is uncomfortable in teaching and learning situations to lecturers even to
students.
This project is developed to manage and reduce the current problems faced by
the lecturers and students in a systematic and structured method. The system only can
be functional after it is activated by the administrator or lecturer to identify and record
students attendance. This can prevent the student or other people to access it.
There are some functions provided including adding and editing student
attendance information, calculating the percentage of student attendance and printing
the student attendance sheet.

1.2

Problem Statement
The current problem is the management of students attendance still done in a

manual process. This poses difficulty for lecturers to take the student attendance, which
they have to use valuable time to verify each student who has attended the class.
Besides the lecturer verifying the attendance himself or herself, the other way is
by passing around a sheet of student attendance to the students. This allows
uncomfortable learning lessons to students. The student also faces the problem of
signing their attendance on attendance sheet which sometimes they need to wait until
the end of the lecture just to be able to sign. Moreover, the cheated signature situation
frequently happens in which absent students ask their friend to help them to sign the
attendance sheet.

1.3

Objective
The purpose of this project is to develop a Fingerprint-based Attendance

Management System (FAMAS). The project aims to:

i. Provide a systematic and effective solution for administrator/lecturer to manage the
students attendance record
ii. To facilitate the management of student attendance information.
iii. To eliminate the time consuming of manually sign-in attendance by applied
biometric technology.
iv. Provide accurate and immediate calculation percentage for student attendance status.
v. Create a system that assist the administrator in printing the attendance report of each
class.
vi. Build a secure system, which allows safe access by applied biometric technology.

1.4

Scope
The scope of this project will include automatic management of the check in of

students attendance function. This system will be governed by the administrator or

lecturer and thus covers only student study within UNIMAS. Their attendance will be
automatically record each time they check in to the system by using the prepared
hardware. The system will be maintained daily by the administrator or lecturer and they
can add, modify and delete data on the database of the student. The valid lecturers under
UNIMAS register their fingerprint identification to treat it as unique identification for
login to the system.
The main concern will be the functions of system that identifies the student,
recording check in of each lecture he or she has attended. With this information, it will
lead to the calculation of percentage of the student attendance status.

1.5

Expected Outcome
The system automatically searches and records a particular students attendance

after finding the matched fingerprint, which was stored in a certain database. The
database for the particular student will be recorded for each class he or she has attended.
The administrators can view the student attendance information after the class. They can
modify the attendance information through the login to administrator respective
features.

1.6 Significant
This project contributes to both administrator/lecturer and student.

1.6.1 Contribution to Administrator/Lecturer

The administrator or lecturer can check the record and attendance trend of
students. This can contribute to important decision such as determining students to sit
for their final exam. The automatically calculation of percentage attendance is the
important feature in this system. This can contribute to accuracy in the calculation
process. Moreover, this application can improve the teaching lesson going smoothly.

1.6.2 Contribution to Student

As mentioned before, students face a lot of difficulties to get the attendance
sheet to sign their attendance. This project manages the student attendance as an
alternative solution from the manual way of sign in attendance to computerized method.
From that, students only need to sign their attendance by using fingerprint on prepared
equipment. In the real situation, students usually help their friends to sign the attendance
without attending the lecture. However, by applying the uniqueness of fingerprint
technology in attendance management, it gives an advantage to validate and record the
attended student. This feature has given better alternative for student and also for the
lecturer if compared to the manually way of sign in attendance which is time consuming
and involves uncomfortable learning process.

1.7

Outline of Project Report

This chapter briefly describes the problem existing in the current system, the

objective of the project, the scope of project and project contribution. Chapter 2
contains reviews of biometric technologies and existing system, which are implemented
in order to manage the attendance. Chapter 3 explains about methodology used in the
system. The methodology will be a guideline to continue the system development.
Chapter 4 describes the system analysis. This chapter will be reviews the
current system to identify the possible problems. Hence, propose a new system to assist
and solve out the problem. Software and hardware specification are identified for
FAMAS to produces the excellent performance. Chapter 5, system design explains the
design issues. Data Flow Diagram (DFD), Entity Relationship Design (ERD), data
normalization and database design are discussed for FAMAS. Chapter 6 describes the
implementation of FAMAS while Chapter 7 reports the testing and evaluation of the
FAMAS. Lastly, achievements and future enhancements for FAMAS are explained in
Chapter 8.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1

Introduction
In this chapter, there is consists of parts. First part, reviewing overall

information concerned with the biometric topics. Besides, the existing biometric
identification technologies have been review through its technology, advantages and
disadvantages aspect. Moreover, it will be an important factor to choose the biometric
identification for this project. Second part, reviews of the interface and functionality of
the existing attendance management system was carried out to assist in designing the
appropriate user interface for the system proposed.

Part 1: Reviewing Biometric Technologies

2.2

Overview of Biometric
The biometric is refer to identification and verification of a person based on

physically or behavioral through a particular techniques. In more easier words to

understand, biometric means a unique personal attributes that we have can used for
identification a person in various purpose. The common biometrics based on physically
or behavioral characteristic that a normal person have are:
i. Face
ii. Iris
iii. Retina
iv. Voice
v. Handprint
vi. Fingerprint

vii. Signature
Basically, this method of identification a person is preferred over traditional
methods. As rapid increasing used of computer in information technology areas, a
secure restricting access to privacy or personal data must be obtained. The biometric
technique can use in many application area in order to prevent unauthorized access to
use the privacy data such as ATMs, smart card, computer networks, time & attendance
system, desktop PCs and workstation.
Nowadays, there are several types of system developed through biometrics
technique for real-time identification. The face recognition and fingerprint matching are
the most popular biometric technique used to develop the system followed by hand
geometric, iris, retina, and speech.

2.3

Biometric Technologies

2.3.1 Introduction
The biometric technologies can define as an automated system of recognizing a
person based on the person's physical or behavioral characteristics. Nowadays, as an
advanced of biometric technologies may be an option for identification application
rather than uses physical card, documents, passwords or ID numbers. The basic
processes inside the biometric technologies are capture and store the information at
enrollment stage and than compare at a later verification stage.

2.3.2 Advantages of Biometrics Technologies

The overview advantages using the biometric identification technologies are:

i. It provided a convenience to the user which they no need to remember

identification or password.
ii. When the verification has been swift and it does not require a staff to
manage.
iii. It provided greater security which biometrics will only link a person to an
action.
iv. The users identity is stored safety and it is free.
v. The users no need to verify identity via a central repository or server.

2.3.3 Biometric Identification Technologies

The few common biometric identification technologies will be review in this
section such as facial, iris/ retina, voice and fingerprint.
2.3.3.1 Facial Identification
This biometric identification recognized a persons heat pattern around the eyes
and cheeks to verify their identity. It may use several different techniques through this
biometric technology including video and photo imaging. More advance it able to scan
the dimension of an individuals head.
There are two significant methods in order to identify an individual which is
detection and recognition. The detection method captured an image human face by a
video camera and taking that face. Next, software goes through the captured image for
general facial structures and measures and determines the rest of the face. After create
an image form a person face, it will be convert into binary mask. The binary mask is
significant in recognition method which use to comparing the captured face that have
been saved and stored in a database.

However, the accuracy of this biometric technology influence by lighting, age

and hair of an individuals characteristics.

2.3.3.2 Iris/Retina Identification

It was using the characteristic inside the live iris to recognize an individual
identity. Although, approximately 260 of those are used or captured in a "live" iris
identification application (IRIS and RETINAL Identification, 1997). Because of this
unique characteristic, iris has more distinct identifiable feature compare to fingerprint.
Basically, there are few common steps in iris identification. First, a person has to
stand in front of the iris identification hardware for calculation their position. Second,
the camera will automatic taking the iris image in white and black format that use to
recognize an iris pattern called eyeprint. Finally the captured image is checked against
previously stored in database.
The time its take for an iris identification technology to identify our iris is
approximately two seconds. The probability of mismatch situation occurs lowest of all
known biometrics.

2.3.3.3 Hand Geometry Identification

The basic principle of operation the use of hand geometric is to measure or
record the physical geometric characteristic of an individuals hand. When using this
biometric technology, three dimension image of the hand need to taken. The usage of
this image is also like other biometric technologies which use to compare with the
template image hand geometry stored in the database. An individuals characteristic
hand such as length of fingers, widths and depth are use to measure.