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NF-Heart: A Near-field Non-contact Continuous User Authentication System via Ballistocardiogram

Published: 28 March 2023 Publication History

Abstract

The increasingly remote workforce resulting from the global coronavirus pandemic has caused unprecedented cybersecurity concerns to organizations. Considerable evidence has shown that one-pass authentication fails to meet security needs when the workforce work from home. The recent advent of continuous authentication (CA) has shown the potential to solve this predicament. In this paper, we propose NF-Heart, a physiological-based CA system utilizing a ballistocardiogram (BCG). The key insight is that the BCG measures the body's micro-movements produced by the recoil force of the body in reaction to the cardiac ejection of blood, and we can infer cardiac biometrics from BCG signals. To measure BCG, we deploy a lightweight accelerometer on an office chair, turning the common chair into a smart continuous identity "scanner". We design multiple stages of signal processing to decompose and transform the distorted BCG signals so that the effects of motion artifacts and dynamic variations are eliminated. User-specific fiducial features are then extracted from the processed BCG signals for authentication. We conduct comprehensive experiments on 105 subjects in terms of verification accuracy, security, robustness, and long-term availability. The results demonstrate that NF-Heart achieves a mean balanced accuracy of 96.45% and a median equal error rate of 3.83% for CA. The proposed signal processing pipeline is effective in addressing various practical disturbances.

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      cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies
      Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies  Volume 7, Issue 1
      March 2023
      1243 pages
      EISSN:2474-9567
      DOI:10.1145/3589760
      Issue’s Table of Contents
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      Published: 28 March 2023
      Published in IMWUT Volume 7, Issue 1

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      Author Tags

      1. Ballistocardiogram (BCG)
      2. Biometrics
      3. Continuous authentication
      4. Non-contact sensing
      5. Smart Chair

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      • (2025)Toward Robust Person Identification Using BCG Signals: A Multistage Fingerprinting ApproachIEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement10.1109/TIM.2025.352759174(1-15)Online publication date: 2025
      • (2024)ToMoBrush: Exploring Dental Health Sensing Using a Sonic ToothbrushProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/36785058:3(1-27)Online publication date: 9-Sep-2024
      • (2024)Dual-Modality Electromechanical Physiology Source MappingIEEE Sensors Journal10.1109/JSEN.2024.338234724:10(16387-16396)Online publication date: 15-May-2024
      • (2023)Knowing Your Heart Condition AnytimeProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/36108717:3(1-28)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2023

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