Nonparametric subspace analysis fused to 2DPCA for face recognition

Abstract Two-dimensional principal component analysis (2DPCA) is one of the representative techniques for image representation and recognition. However, keen storage requirements and computational complexity consist in 2DPCA. Meanwhile, the performance of 2DPCA is delicate in illumination variations. Nonparametric subspace analysis (NSA) is a subspace learning method that can reduce dimensionality and identify local information for discrimination, so that it can make 2DPCA perform well in illumination. Motivated by above facts, 2DPCA fused with NSA is implemented for face recognition, which can reduce dimensions of the 2DPCA feature vectors and enhance the contribution of principal components to face recognition. Experiments carried out on ORL, Yale B, and FERET facial databases show that valid recognition rates can be achieved by the proposed method compared to 2DPCA, 2DPCA plus PCA, LDA methods and demonstrate promising abilities against illumination variations.