Hybrid Neural Classifier Combined with H-ART2 and F-LVQ for Face Recognition

This paper presents an effective pattern classification model by designing an artificial neural network based pattern classifiers for face recognition. First, a RGB image inputted from a frame grabber is converted into a HSV image which is similar to the human beings' vision system. Then, the coarse facial region is extracted using the hue(H) and saturation(S) components except intensity(V) component which is sensitive to the environmental illumination. Next, the fine facial region extraction process is performed by matching with the edge and gray based templates. To make a light-invariant and qualified facial image, histogram equalization and intensity compensation processing using illumination plane are performed. The finally extracted and enhanced facial images are used for training the pattern classification models. The proposed H-ART2 model which has the hierarchical ART2 layers and F-LVQ model which is optimized by fuzzy membership make it possible to classify facial patterns by optimizing relations of clusters and searching clustered reference patterns effectively. Experimental results show that the proposed face recognition system is as good as the SVM model which is famous for face recognition field in recognition rate and even better in classification speed. Moreover high recognition rate could be acquired by combining the proposed neural classification models.