针对指纹匹配中的非线性形变问题，首次提出了稳定区域的概念，并给出了一种新颖的基于指纹稳定区域的形变指纹匹配算法。通过稳定区域这一概念，巧妙地把指纹匹配问题转化为寻找两幅指纹中对应稳定区域的问题。该算法通过稳定区域的构造、确认和扩张3个步骤，实现了从点到面再到更大区域，从线性形变区域到非线性形变区域的匹配策略。该算法在国际指纹识别竞赛FVC2004的数据库上进行了测试，实验结果表明，该算法有着良好的匹配性能，并有较强的处理非线性形变的能力。

Distorted fingerprint matching is an important but difficult problem for automatic fingerprint recognition system. To cope with it, we propose a novel approach for distorted fingerprint matching via stable region (SR). By means of SR, the issue to match two fingerprints is tactfully converted to a search and find the corresponding SRs in the fingerprints. Through a three-step procedure which consists of construction, confirmation and expansion, corresponding minutiae are matched in different spatial scales from points to local structures and in different kinds of distorted regions from linear to nonlinear. The proposed algorithm is evaluated with FVC2004 database, and the experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has excellent performance and is strongly robust to nonlinear distortion.