Face localization using fuzzy classifier with wavelet-localized focus color features and shape features

This paper proposes a new fuzzy classifier (FC)-based face localization approach. The FC used is a self-organizing TS-type fuzzy network with support vector learning (SOTFN-SV). The SOTFN-SV learns consequent parameters using a linear support vector machine to improve generalization ability. The FC is first applied to segment human skin pixels in scaled hue and saturation (hS) color space, after whirls connected skin-color regions are regarded as face candidates. The FC is then applied to detect and localize faces from the candidates. The proposed FC-based face localization approach uses shape and wavelet-localized focus color features. A best fitting ellipse of each face candidate is found to obtain shape features. Focus color features are extracted from four focus regions, including the two eyes, the mouth, and the face skin-color region. To find these focus color regions, the Haar-wavelet transformation is first applied to the face candidates in the YCb color space to localize all possible pairs of eye candidates. The mouth region is then localized according to its geometric relationship with the eyes. The hS color features of the located eyes, mouth, and face skin are extracted. These focus color features, together with shape features. serve as inputs to another FC for final face localization. Comparisons with various classifiers and face detection methods demonstrate the advantage of the FC-based skin color segmentation and face localization method. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.