**Table 1.**

*Image Sharpness-Based System Design for Touchless Palmprint Recognition DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92828*

the custom acquisition devices, more information can be retrieved in a multispectral image or 3D palmprint image. A 2D gray scale palmprint example with feature definitions is shown in **Figure 1**. The purpose of this chapter is to review recent research on palmprint acquisition systems to trace the development of palmprint recognition-based biometric systems. In this chapter, we coarsely divide the devices into three types by acquisition mode: touch-based devices, touchless devices, and portable devices. Touch-based devices usually have pegs to constrain the hand pose and position, which can capture the details of palmprint to the most extent. The illuminating environment is also stable during capturing process. These constrains ensure the captured palmprint images to be high quality. For touchless devices, users can freely place their palms in front of the camera while the hand pose is generally required to spread out the fingers. The environment during the capturing process becomes more complicated, especially the illumination. There are also datasets composed of palmprint images captured in a relatively free fashion. These images may be collected on the Internet which we will not discuss here. Otherwise, collectors use digital cameras or phone cameras to capture palmprint image, and usually, there are no strict conditions forced on the user. In the rest of this chapter, first, we will introduce the representative palmprint acquisition devices, and then study the relationship between the palm distance, image sharpness, hardware parameters, and the final recognition performance. **Table 1** summarizes the palmprint acquisition devices.
