Research advanced in offline handwritten signature verification

Abstract

Biometrics technology has penetrated into various fields of our lives that require authentication and verification, such as criminal investigation, check processing and legal procedures, which is a focus of debate in the scientific research community. As a biometric feature that is easy to obtain, verification of handwritten signatures has attracted great interest in the past several decades. Although the online handwritten signature verification (OnHSV) system can obtain more information and has a higher accuracy rate, the offline handwritten signature verification (OfHSV) system remains the focus of research, since most signatures we can obtain are offline. In this paper, according to the difference of steps of OfHSV, we classify and introduce the advanced research work of OfHSV from four aspects: datasets, preprocessing techniques, feature extraction methods, and neural network structures. Additionally, we introduced the background of signature verification system and the experimental results of existing technologies. Finally, we presented some notable challenges, leading the reader to current trends and future directions in this field.