Multimodal Authentification with Earables

Background

Earables are earbuds that are equipped with multiple sensors. Authentication is one of the four big application areas of earables as defined by Röddiger et al. (2022). Although it has been the smallest when the review was published, there was a surge in publications thereafter. This points to the significance and grown interest in authentication.

The aim of this master’s thesis is both to better understand the concept of authentication with earables and to contribute to the literature by using the multimodality of the OpenEarable 2.0 (Röddiger et al., 2025).

Tasks

1. Systematically search the literature for papers on authentication with earables (expected to be around 40 papers). Classify these papers according to a small set of criteria in order to better understand the characteristics of the existing research.
2. Analyze the current state of the literature and use this to inform the concrete project for the master’s thesis.
3. Use OpenEarable 2.0 to develop your own authentication algorithm. This algorithm should:
   • Take advantage of the multimodality of OpenEarable 2.0.
   • Fill gaps identified in the literature
   • Build an authentication framework that is accurate, feasible in real life, and robust under different conditions and settings.