An access control system is used to allow or deny access to the premises for a specific individual. The access control system can be role based also so that the users belong to specific role, department, designation etc. can get access to the premises which can be customized by administrator through the access control system software. An efficient access control system has various advantages like operating cost can be reduced, safety to the premises can be improved, advanced reports can be produced and supplied to various software like time attendance etc.
Identification is the important part of the access control system. Identification is the process of identifying a specific person using the credentials submitted by the user. There are various techniques can be used to identify an individual in the process of identification like RFID, Biometric, PIN etc. In RFID system the contactless card will be issued to the user which might be printed using an ID Card Printer. The ID card Printer can have encoder, laminator etc. in addition to printing. There are various advantages and drawbacks for an RFID based identification system.
The main drawback of the RFID system is that the card can be lost or stolen, and unauthorized peoples can get access to the premises. To overcome this drawback the access can be granted on the basis of Card and PIN which is adopted by lots of organizations like government and semi government firms.
The identification process can use biometric as a different technique to authorize an individual to the premises. Biometric systems using the physical characteristics of an individual that is unique to each person like fingerprint, palm geography, facial identification, IRIS etc. The main advantage of Biometric system of identifying a person is it cannot be duplicated or replicated.
The fingerprint identification is the most common way of identification technique which used in access control systems. Fingerprint systems are used most commonly in time attendance systems, driving license, national ID solutions etc. In fingerprint identification, the person’s finger image will be compared with the image which is stored previously in the system. The fingerprint can be stored in the database by string or bytes.
In facial recognition system, the image of the human face will be compared with a digital image that is enrolled before. There are devices available from various well known brands which can support both finger, face and RFID systems.
In access control systems other than individual, the identification can be applied to other devices also, like vehicles etc. In vehicle access control system, the number plate of the vehicle will be scanned and make sure the vehicle is author used to enter the parking area. In vehicle identification process other than ANPR separate UHF cards can be issued to each vehicle. The UHF cards are long range reading cards and the range can vary from one meter to ten meter or even higher.