MUMBAI, India, May 1 -- Intellectual Property India has published a patent application (202641049473 A) filed by Rns Institute Of Technology; Dr. K Manjunatha; Shruti Verma; Dr. Akshay Arjun; and S A Shwetha, Bengaluru, Karnataka, on April 17, for 'copper ferrite nanostructured composition synthesized via co-precipitation method and an integrated approach for daylight visualization and automated digital analysis of latent fingerprints.'
Inventor(s) include Dr. K Manjunatha; Shruti Verma; Dr. Akshay Arjun; and S A Shwetha.
The application for the patent was published on May 1, under issue no. 18/2026.
According to the abstract released by the Intellectual Property India: "The present invention relates to a nanostructured material system and an associated method for the development and automated analysis of latent fingerprints under ambient lighting conditions. More specifically, the invention discloses the synthesis and application of copper ferrite nanoparticles prepared via a co-precipitation method, wherein the resulting spinel-structured nanomaterial exhibits enhanced surface activity, controlled particle size distribution, and improved interaction with fingerprint residues. The copper ferrite nanoparticles are employed as a fingerprint development agent in a powder-based application, enabling efficient and selective adhesion to moisture, sebaceous oils, and organic components present in latent fingerprints. Due to their favorable physicochemical properties and optical response, the developed fingerprints exhibit high-contrast ridge-valley patterns with improved structural clarity under natural daylight conditions, eliminating the requirement for ultraviolet or specialized illumination sources. The developed fingerprint images are further processed using OpenCV-based digital image analysis techniques. The processing workflow includes grayscale conversion, normalization, segmentation, orientation estimation, ridge enhancement using directional filtering, binarization, and skeletonization, followed by extraction of minutiae features. This enables precise identification of critical fingerprint characteristics, including ridge endings, bifurcation points, and ridge flow patterns, thereby supporting reliable biometric recognition and forensic identification. The proposed invention offers significant advantages over conventional systems, including controlled and scalable nanoparticle synthesis via co-precipitation method, enhanced fingerprint visualization efficiency, improved ridge definition, reduced background interference, and compatibility with accessible computational tools. The integration of copper ferrite nanoparticle-assisted fingerprint development with automated digital processing establishes a robust, cost-effective, and field-deployable platform suitable for forensic investigation, biometric authentication, and security applications."
Disclaimer: Curated by HT Syndication.
