Towards Face Recognition at a Distance

Current face recognition algorithms require the tacit cooperation of users, who must position themselves in a small area of space and face the camera. Face recognition in uncontrolled conditions, such as in security camera footage presents two extra challenges. First, it is difficult to capture good quality images of faces in this setting. Second, the pose of the face is relatively uncontrolled which causes most face recognition algorithms to fail. In this paper, we present a series of solutions to address these problems. High quality face images are captured using a foveated wide field sensor, in which a narrow-field camera is directed towards faces using information from a static wide-field camera. Feature points corresponding to the eyes/nose etc. are accurately localized and face shape is normalized. A novel algorithm is introduced to identify these (typically non-frontal) faces from a test gallery of frontal faces. Results are demonstrated to be superior to contemporary approaches.

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