Tribhuvan University

Asian School of Management and Technology

Project Proposal

On

Face Recognition-based Attendance System using CNN

Course Code: CSC-404

A Project Proposal for the Final Year Project submitted to the partial fulfillment of the
requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Information
Technology awarded by Tribhuvan University.

Submitted by

Anisha Lamichhane (TU Exam Roll No. 20981/075)

Saroj Rimal (TU Exam Roll No. 21011/075)

Sushma Tamang (TU Roll No. 21020/075)

Submitted to

Department of Computer Science and Information Technology

Asian School of Management and Technology Institute of Science and Technology

Tribhuvan University
1. Introduction
In any educational administration, the student attendance record is one of the crucial issues
dealt with in any school, college, and university from time to time. Every organization has
its own method to do so, one of the approaches is taking attendance manually by calling
the roll number of students which is a tedious and time-consuming task. Therefore, many
institutes started deploying many other techniques for recording attendance like the use of
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), iris recognition, fingerprint recognition, and so on.
In the RFID card system, each student is assigned a card with their corresponding identity
but there is a chance of card loss, or an unauthorized person may misuse the card for fake
attendance. While other biometrics systems such as fingerprint, iris, or voice recognition,
they all have their own flaws, and they are intrusive in nature [1].
On the other hand, the use of face recognition is one of the smart ways of marking
attendance. It can be easily acquirable and is non-intrusive. Face recognition involves two
steps, the first step involves the detection of faces, and the second step consists of the
identification of those detected face images with the existing database.
This proposed system can be applied to create attendance using Face recognition, which
involves the process of extracting key features from any facial image of a student captured
at the time he/she is entering the classroom. Upon its successful recognition, it proceeds to
mark that recognized student’s attendance automatically.

2. Problem Statement
Research shows that attendance is an important factor in student achievement. School
attendance is a powerful predictor of student outcomes. At the beginning and end of class,
it is usually checked by the teacher, but it may appear that a teacher may miss someone, or
some students answer multiple times pretending to be another student. Face recognition-
based attendance system is a problem of recognizing faces for taking attendance by using
face recognition technology based on information technology.
3. Objectives
The Attendance System using Face Recognition is designed to reduce the flaws present in
the traditional manual attendance system. Some major objectives of our proposed system
are:
a. To automate the daily attendance in schools/colleges.
b. To evaluate the attendance eligibility criteria of the student.
c. To reduce the chances of proxy attendance

4. Methodology
4.1. Requirement Identification
4.1.1. Study of Existing System / Literature Review
Various research has been done and various systems have been already implemented to
overcome the problem caused by the traditional way of marking attendance.

Authors in [2] proposed a model of an automated attendance system. The model focuses
on how face recognition incorporated with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) detects
authorized students and counts them as they get in and get out of the classroom. The system
also keeps the data of every student registered for a particular course in the attendance log
and provides necessary information according to the need. The problem with this approach
is an unknown person can make use of a valid ID card and enter the university.

In [3], authors proposed an automatic student attendance system using a Convolutional

Neural Network which includes data entry, dataset training, face recognition, and
attendance entry. The system can detect and recognize multiple person’s faces from video
streams and automatically record daily attendance. The system achieved average
recognition accuracy of about 92%.

In [4], the authors proposed the implementation of face recognition using HOG and
machine learning. It will analyze the attendance of students using machine learning to ease
the daily routine of teachers and staff. The Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) is used
to extract the features from the face using the dataset to classify the students. However, 100
% accuracy of this setup is not guaranteed as it might result in failure sometimes due to
environmental, noise, internet, and live web camera issues.
In [5], face recognition is used for marking the attendance of the student. Authors have
used Haar Cascade for face detection and the LBPH algorithm for face recognition with
maximum accuracy of almost 80% for face recognition.

In [6], authors have implemented an android-based attendance system using face

recognition. To ensure the student attend the course, a QR code containing the course
information was generated and displayed at the front of the classroom. The student only
needed to capture his/her face image and displayed the QR code using his/her smartphone.
The image was then sent to the server for the attendance process. The experimental result
shows that the proposed attendance system achieved a face recognition accuracy of 97.29
and only needed 0.000096s to recognize a face image in the server.

The authors in [7] have proposed an attendance system that marks the attendance of the
system using fingerprint. However, there are some limitations of fingerprint technology
like the inability to identify some students for poor fingerprints.

4.1.2. Requirement Analysis

Requirement Analysis is very important before starting any project. We have also
performed various Functional, Non - Functional and System Requirements while
developing this project.

4.1.2.1. Functional Requirements:

A functional requirement is something a system must do. These are the basic requirements
of the products. It includes the functions of different screens and shows the workflow of
how the system and user will interact with one another. In the proposed system, the admin
can register the identity of the student such as name, roll no, faculty, etc. and the students
should be able to open the camera and the system should detect the face if it is already
present in the database.
Figure 1: Use Case Diagram for Attendance System using Face Recognition

4.1.2.2. Non-Functional requirement

The non-functional requirements are requirements that specify criteria that can be used to
judge the operation of a system, rather than specific behaviors. In the context of our project,
the non–functional requirement includes extensibility, fault tolerance, performance, and
response time.
• Performance and Response Time
The system prototype should perform well when the users face the webcam in straight
90 degrees inclination. Likewise, the response time of the system should be around 3-
5 seconds. The proposed system should detect the faces when the student comes in front
of the camera and shouldn't take a long time.
• Accessibility and Compatibility
Our project should be able to be accessed from every device which can be connected
to the internet. It should have a camera and internet, and then our project should be
available to them.
• Extensibility
Our project should be able to be extended. We can add new features like push
notifications for absent students in the future.
• Fault Tolerance
Our project should be able to cope with the incorrect inputs of the user. We should be
able to detect images. It must be highly accurate.
4.2. Feasibility Study
The feasibility study is the likelihood the system will be useful to the organization. After
studying the requirements, whether the proposed project is feasible or not, is determined
by checking the various feasibilities. The four aspects of the feasibility study are:

4.2.1. Technical Feasibility

Technical feasibility corresponds to the determination of whether it is technically feasible
(i.e., feasible in terms of software (windows or macOS), hardware (laptop 8GB RAM with
GPU), personnel, and expertise) to develop the software. The proposed system makes use
of the CNN algorithm for image processing. And it uses python language, which makes the
system platform independent. The technology used are latest, hence the system is
technically feasible.
4.2.2. Operational Feasibility
Operational feasibility is dependent on human resources available for the project and
involves projecting whether the system will be used if it is developed and implemented.
Operationally the system is feasible as nowadays almost all the teachers/staffs are familiar
with digital technology and 2 to 3 manpower is more than enough for building this project.

4.2.3. Economic Feasibility

Economic feasibility is also known as cost/benefit analysis. This is a small project with no
cost for development. Therefore, there is no need to spend on training to use the system.
This system has the potential to grow by adding functionalities for students as well as
teachers. Hence, the project could have economic benefits in the future. Considering the
above factors project is economically feasible.

4.2.4. Schedule Feasibility

Time is the most affecting factor while making a project or a system like this one. The
project should be finished within the assigned time. Otherwise, the whole project will be
delayed. For this project, the time provided is a whole semester. The Gantt chart below
shows the expected lifecycle of the proposed system.
 Figure 2: Gantt Chart for Attendance System using Face Recognition

4.3. High-level Design of System

4.3.1. Methodology of the proposed system
The proposed system uses Agile software development methodology. In Agile
methodology, we manage a project by breaking it up into several phases. It involves
constant collaboration with stakeholders and continuous improvement at every stage. Once
the work begins, the development team cycle through a process of planning, executing, and
evaluating. Continuous collaboration is vital, both with team members and project
stakeholders.

Source: https://www.amplifyre.com/articles/agile-methodology-for-software-
development

Figure 3: Agile Methodology

To develop the proposed system, timely delivery and quick adaption to requirement
changes are the major concerns. So agile method is the suitable method for the proposed
system.
4.3.2. Block Diagram
The block diagram of the proposed system is given below:

Figure 4: Block Diagram for Attendance System using Face Recognition

4.3.3. Algorithm
CNN:
A convolutional neural network is a feed-forward neural network that is generally used to
analyze visual images by processing data with a grid-like topology [8]. It’s also known as
ConvNet. In CNN, every image is represented in the form of an array of pixel values.

Figure 5: Representation of how CNN recognizes an image.

A convolution neural network has multiple hidden layers that help in extracting information
from an image. The steps involved to recognize an image using CNN are:
a. The pixels from the image are fed to the convolutional layer that performs the
convolution operation.
b. It results in a convolved map.
c. The convolved map is applied to a ReLU function to generate a rectified feature map.
d. The image is processed with multiple convolutions and ReLU layers for locating the
features.
e. Different pooling layers with various filters are used to identify specific parts of the
image.
f. The pooled feature map is flattened and fed to a fully connected layer to get the final
output.
5. Expected Outcome
The proposed system aims to build an attendance system using face recognition techniques.
The proposed system will be able to mark attendance via face Id. It will detect faces via
webcam and then recognize the faces. After recognition, it will mark the attendance of the
recognized student and update the attendance record.
6. References

[1] K. L. Bhatti, L. Mughal, F. Y. Khuhawar and S. A. Memon, "Smart Attendance

Management System Using Face Recognition," EAI Endorsed Transactions on
Creative Technologies, 29 october 2018.
[2] M. S. Akbar , P. Sarker, A. T. Mansoor and J. Uddin, "Face recognition and RFID
verified attendance system.," 2018 International Conference on Computing,
Electronics & Communications Engineering (iCCECE), pp. 168-172, August 2018.
[3] S. Chowdhury, S. Nath, A. Dey and A. Das, 2020 Emerging Technology in Computing,
Communication and Electronics (ETCCE), December 2020. [Online]. Available:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350925954_Development_of_an_Auto
matic_Class_Attendance_System_using_CNN-based_Face_Recognition. [Accessed
18 December 2022].
[4] S. Qutbuddin and S. Larik, January 2021. [Online]. Available:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348648946_Face_Recognition_for_Aut
omated_Attendance_using_HOG_Machine_Learning. [Accessed Jan 2023].
[5] D. C. G. Pujari, A. V. Hiremath, S. R, B. P and G. K. N, "ENGINEERING RESEARCH
PAPERS," 26 July 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.engpaper.com/face-
detection-based-smart-attendance-system.htm. [Accessed 03 Jan 2023].
[6] D. Sunaryono, J. Siswantoro and R. Anggoro, "An android based course attendance
system using face recognition," ournal of King Saud University-Computer and
Information Sciences , vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 304-312, 2021.
[7] S. Rahman, M. Rahman and M. M. Rahman, "Automated student attendance system
using fingerprint recognition," pp. 90-94, 2018.
[8] A. Biswal, "Simplilearn," 2018. [Online]. Available:
https://www.simplilearn.com/tutorials/deep-learning-tutorial/convolutional-
neural-network#how_does_cnn_recognize_images. [Accessed 05 Jan 2023].