Classification of fused face images using multilayer perceptron neural network

This paper presents a concept of image pixel fusion of visual and thermal faces, which can significantly improve the overall performance of a face recognition system. Several factors affect face recognition performance including pose variations, facial expression changes, occlusions, and most importantly illumination changes. So, image pixel fusion of thermal and visual images is a solution to overcome the drawbacks present in the individual thermal and visual face images. Fused images are projected into eigenspace and finally classified using a multi-layer perceptron. In the experiments we have used Object Tracking and Classification Beyond Visible Spectrum (OTCBVS) database benchmark thermal and visual face images. Experimental results show that the proposed approach significantly improves the verification and identification performance and the success rate is 95.07%. The main objective of employing fusion is to produce a fused image that provides the most detailed and reliable information. Fusion of multiple images together produces a more efficient representation of the image. KeywordsImage fusion, Thermal infrared images, Eigenspace projection, Multilayer Perceptron, Backpropagation learning, Face recognition, Classification.