Bio-Inspired Hybrid Framework for Multi-view Face Detection

Reliable face detection in completely uncontrolled settings still remains a challenging task. This paper introduces a novel hybrid learning strategy that achieves robust in-plane and out-of-plane multi-view face detection through the enhanced implementation of the hierarchical bio-inspired HMAX framework using spiking neurons. Through multiple training trials, separate pools of neurons are trained on different face poses to extract features through feed-forward unsupervised STDP. The trained neurons are then processed by an additional STDP mechanism to generate a streamlined repository of broadly tuned multi-view neurons. After unsupervised feature extraction, supervised feature selection is implemented within the hybrid framework to reduce false positives. The hybrid system achieves robust invariant detection of in-plane and out-of-plane rotated faces that compares favourably with state-of-the-art face detection systems.