Analysis of Neural Networks for Face Recognition Systems with Feature
Extraction To Develop An Eye Localization Based Method
M.R.M. Rizk, Senior Member IEEE, and A. Taha
Alexandria University, Egypt, mrmrizk@ieee.org
Abstract: This paper provides an analysis of
Multilayer Perceptron Backpropagation neural
networks (MLPIBP NN), Radial Basis Function
neural networks (RBF NN), and Multilayer Cluster
neural networks (MCNN) applications in face
recognition. Feature extraction methods involved in
the analysis are the Discrete Wavelet transform
(DWT), Discrete Radon transform (DRT), Discrete
Cosine transform (DCT) and the principal
component analysis (PCA) technique. Algorithms
were developed using Matlab and tested on the
ORL database. Also, a new proposed 2-stage face
recognition system is presented based on eye
localization and a windowed face area for
recognition.
1. INTRODUCTION
Face recognition is a complicated object
recognition problem due to abundance of various
face expressions, face position and lighting
changes.
Different methods for solving the problem can be
classified into: Neural Networks [I ,2], Template
Matching [3], PCA, geometric feature based
matching and algebraic moments. Also, hybrid
systems constructed of two or more of the previous
methods are made.
This paper analyzes and compares the neural
networks' performance in face recognition. We
tested MLPiBP NN, RBF NN, and compare them
with MCNN, used previously in character
recognition [4]. The input data fed to the networks
undergo a feature extraction stage, to help in
dimensionality reduction and removing redundancy
in the input data, thus obtaining high speed
recognition systems. The feature extraction
techniques include the DWT, DRT, DCT and PCA.
For the PCA method, we used two types of
classifiers: the Euclidean classifier and the neural
networks' classifier.
We have used the ORL database taken at the
Olivetti Research Laboratory in Cambridge, U.K.
There are ten different images of 40 distinct
subjects. There are variations in facial expressions
0-7803-7596-3/02/$17.00 02002 E E E
(openiclosed eyes, smilinginonsmiling), and facial
details (glassesino glasses).
All the images were taken against a dark
homogeneous background with the subjects in an
upright frontal position, with tolerance for tilting
and rotation of up to about Z O O , and scaling to about
10%. The images are greyscale with a resolution of
92x1 12.
We proposed a 2-stage face recognition system.
The first stage is a MLP BP NN that detects the
eyes region in the introduced faces then a useful
windowed face region (the eye area is stretched to
include the eye brows upwards and the mouth
downwards) is constructed and used in recognition
in the second stage via a DCT RBF NN.
Fig. 1.Samples of the ORL database
LAPPLYING MLP BACKPROPAGATION
NEURAL NETWORK
The MLPiBP NN may be trained to recognize face
images directly. For example if the images are 92 x
112, the number of the network inputs would he
10304. To reduce the computational complexity,
two common feature extraction techniques are
applied. The first technique is based on the
computation of a set of geometrical features from
the face image. The second class is based on
transforms, for reducing dimensionality, getting
multiresolution features, or invariant features to
scaling, translation, and rotation within the image.
We focus on the second technique, where DWT,
DCT, DRT and PCA coefficients are used, together
with normalization methods for the sake of image
compression.
The following steps are used for recognition using
dimensionality reduction:
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Step 1. The transform is used to reduce the input
space from 10304 units (92x1 12)
Step 2. The image vectors are normalized.
Step 3. The training set used contains 5 samples per
subject.
Step 4. The testing set used contains I O samples per
subject, with 5 samples not introduced in the
training phase.
Step 5. The MLPBP NN structure with the reduced
input units is used, one hidden layer of 50 units,
and 40 output units .
2.1 Recognition Using DWT
We used DI wavelets, to achieve 93.75% image
compression. The DWT is used to reduce the input
space to (23x28) units. Steps 2 through 5 are used.
The resulting recognition rate reached 93.25% .
2.2 Recognition Using Common
Interpolation
Image compression is achieved using common
interpolation method based on the nearest neighbor
pixel. Thus, resizing the input space to 644 units
and following steps 2 through 5, the resulting
recognition rate reached 90.25% .
2.3 Recognition Using DRT
We used the Radon transform to achieve around
83.6% dimensionality reduction. The Radon
projections are taken over 180 degrees with a step
of I O degrees. The projection vector is truncated to
a reasonable size to get the most useful area of the
face where 1692 input units are taken, and going
from steps 2 to 4. The resulting recognition rate
reached 93.75%. This result is even better than the
DWT approach.
2.4 Recognition Using the DCT
We have used DCT to achieve around 99.11%
dimensionality reduction, by truncating high
frequency components and preserving the low
spatial frequency DCT components only. A
scanning strategy is done that concentrates on the
upper left corner of the DCT space image as shown
in figure 2. The image vectors are subtracted from
their mean and normalized. We reduced the input
space to 91 units, following steps 3 and 4, the
MLP/BP neural network structure is 91 input units,
40 hidden units, and 40 output units. The resulting
recognition rate reached 97.5%. This is the best
result achieved in the above experiments.
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Fig.2. The scanning strategy used for locating low
frequency DCT components
3. APPLYING RBF NEURAL NETWORKS
The RBF network has been known by its
computational simplicity, fast convergence, and
statistical robustness due its localized receptive
fields in the hidden layer. They are good at
handling sparse, high dimensional data (common in
images), and because they use approximation which
is better than interpolation for handling noisy, real
life data, RBF networks are claimed to be more
accurate than those based on MLP/BP networks.
They have been widely used in face recognition,
and proved their efficiency [SI.
The four previous experiments held using the
MLP/BP NN are replaced by RBF networks in
Step 5. The results are shown in Table I .
4. APPLYING MCNN
MCNN are first introduced by S. Lee et al. in 1995
[4] for multiresolution recognition of handwritten
numerals. Here, we used the MCNN on face
recognition by extracting multiresolution features
via D4 wavelets to compress images to (16*16) and
(8*8) matrices. Having the same steps from 2 to 4,
the MCNN has the structure of [4 (8*8) + 4 (4*4)]
input layer, [4 (8'8) + 4 (4*4)] hidden layer and 40
nodes in the output layer. The resulting recognition
rate reached 91%.
5. APPLYING PCA
The PCA has been widely used in face recognition
systems [6][7]. To compare its performance
against that of previous techniques, the images are
normalized, the eigenfaces calculated using five
samples per subject (40 eigenfaces). The
Euclidean distance (L2 norm), the RBF and the
MLPBP NN were used for classification
respectively. The results are given in Table 1. The
MLP/BP NN has the best performance as a
classifier.
 6. The EYE LOCALIZER/ FACE
RECOGNITION SYSTEM
We proposed an eye localizer method via MLP/BP
NN followed by RBF NN for face recognition.
6.1 The Eye Localizer Neural Network
L 84 samples of (42 eye / 42 non-eye) blocks are
used. The eye blocks size is of 92x1 5.
I - The eye blocks are first subtracted from their
mean.
2- The DCT coefficients are taken using the same
previous scanning strategy.
3- DCT coefficients are truncated to the first 15
low frequency coefficients and then normalized.
4- The input data is then introduced to a MLP/BP
NN with 15x15x2 units .
The network achieved 96% correct classifications
for the eye region.
Samples of the network input are shown in figure
3.
c ,5 1 a
Fig.3.a.Positive Fig. 3.b.Negative
Samples Samples
6.2 The Face Recognition NN
The output of the previous neural network is taken
and a useful face area is constructed accordingly.
The area is set such that the eye block is stretched
to 10 pixels upwards and 35 pixels downwards,
where the overall area sums up to 92x60 pixels
removing 46.4% redundant data. The RBF stage is
summarized as follows:
1- 5 training samples are taken and subtracted
from their mean.
2- The first 105 low frequency DCT coefficients
are taken from the samples and normalized.
3- A R B F " is used for classification.
The network achieved 90% recognition rate.
Fig.4.Examples of the RBF NN input data
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7. DISCUSSION
It is evident that the MLPiBP NN trained with DCT
has the best recognition rate. Aside from the
recognition rates, it exhibits the hest performance in
terms of data reduction and compatibility.
This is due to the fact that DCT coefficients, unlike
PCA, are data independent, and a very small
number of low frequency components can preserve
the important facial features. DCT coefficients
show the most variance over the training images.
The MLP/BP NN trained with DRT follows the
MLPiBP DCT NN in terms of recognition rate,
together with the RBF NN trained with DWT. But
the latter is better in terms of speed. This is due to
the nature of the RBF networks of fast
generalization and local receptive fields. Also,
DWT provides one of the best image compression
ratios and noise immunity, and is much better than
the DRT. Table 1 shows the overall results.
~____
I Classifier I Coefficients1 Recognition I
Type I Type I Rate
MLPiBPNN I DWT I 93.25%
Table. 1. The overall performance of the techniques
used
The propagating error in the eye localization/face
recognition system caused the low recognition rate
of 90.5%, since the misclassifications in the first
stage of the MLP/BP NN causes inaccurate face
region and wrong data fed to the second stage, the
second stage has also its own errors in recognition.
We investigated the effect of database increase and
the number of training samples on the performance
of the MLP/BP neural network. Figure 5 and 6
summarizes the obtained results.
It is evident from figure 5 that at small databases,
most techniques perform very well, but as the
database volume increases, only DCT keeps its
high recognition rate. Also, we find out from figure
6 that if the number of available training samples is
low, PCA and DWT act very well, while if the
number of available training samples is high, most
techniques perform well and DCT is at the top.
Fig.5. The effect of database increase.
Effecl of Database Increase on M L e P NN
10 20 30
Fig.6. The effect of increasing the training samples
The DCT has been performed by taking the whole
image (92*112 matrix) convert it into a vector
(1*10304), and for the whole 200 sample set of
images, calculate the average vector, then subtract
each image vector from the average. The resulting
vector is converted into a matrix (92*112) again.
The DCT transform is performed for the whole
matrix (92*112) in the 2dimension form. we took
the first 91 coefficients using the zigzag scanning
strategy from the DCT matrix and use it for
recognition.
8. CONCLUSIONS
The paper discussed the application of artificial
neural networks in face recognition systems.
Through these applications, many feature extraction
techniques were used. These techniques include
DWT, DCT, DRT, PCA and compression using
interpolation.
The experiments that we held on the ORL database
proved that MLPiBP networks fed with DCT low
frequency components exhibit the hest
performance, as it has the lowest overall training
time, the lowest redundant data, the highest
recognition rates.
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