A novel design proposal for low-cost vein-viewer for medical and non-contact biometric applications using NIR imaging

Abstract

The vein-viewer is a new revolution in the health industry. In fact, it is one of the must-have gadgets for any medical professional. The vein-viewer is device that helps to access easily veins when trying to collect a blood sample or for administering Intravenous (IV) cannulation. It is also an aid for dermatologist/aesthetic physician to access client’s veins for sclerotherapy procedures or avoiding veins in cosmetic procedures. The vein-viewer is highly applicable where vascular positioning is really difficult; examples while canulating infants, obese, hairy/dark skins, dialysis/cancer patients etc. In addition, frequent attempts affect patients, causing trauma and subcutaneous haemorrhage. As palm/finger vein patterns are unique and complex, difficult to duplicate or steal as it is beneath the skin. So, in this Covid19 pandemic time, the vein-viewer finds applications in the secure non-contact bio-metric authentications for secure banking and attendance registering system to identify an individual. In this article I am trying to explain the design overview of vein-viewer system, its design challenges, cost aspects, its availability and also sharing a few inputs for the new compact, low-cost design and implementation.

Keywords:

• Vein-viewer
• near infra-red (NIR)
• digital image processing
• biometrics
• telemedicine

Acknowledgements

My sincere acknowledgement to Mrs Neethu Sasikumar and Mrs. Preethi S for their support for the experimental works in this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).