Abstract
Face detection is the problem of determining whether there are human faces in the image and tries to make a judgment on whether or not that image contains a face. In this paper, we propose a face detector using an efficient architecture based on a Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) neural network and Maximal Rejection Classifier (MRC). The proposed approach significantly improves the efficiency and the accuracy of detection in comparison with the traditional neural-network techniques. In order to reduce the total computation cost, we organize the neural network in a pre-stage that is able to reject a majority of non-face patterns in the image backgrounds, thereby significantly improving the overall detection efficiency while maintaining the detection accuracy. An important advantage of the new architecture is that it has a homogeneous structure so that it is suitable for very efficient implementation using programmable devices. Comparisons with other state-of-the-art face detection systems are presented. Our proposed approach achieves one of the best detection accuracies with significantly reduced training and detection cost.