Convolutional Neural Network-Based Human Identification Using Outer Ear Images

This paper presents a deep learning approach for ear localization and recognition. The comparable complexity between human outer ear and face in terms of its uniqueness and permanence has increased interest in the use of ear as a biometric. But similar to face recognition, it poses challenges such as illumination, contrast, rotation, scale, and pose variation. Most of the techniques used for ear biometric authentication are based on traditional image processing techniques or handcrafted ensemble features. Owing to extensive work in the field of computer vision using convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and histogram of oriented gradients (HOG), the feasibility of deep neural networks (DNNs) in the field of ear biometrics has been explored in this research paper. A framework for ear localization and recognition is proposed that aims to reduce the pipeline for a biometric recognition system. The proposed framework uses HOG with support vector machines (SVMs) for ear localization and CNN for ear recognition. CNNs combine feature extraction and ear recognition tasks into one network with an aim to resolve issues such as variations in illumination, contrast, rotation, scale, and pose. The feasibility of the proposed technique has been evaluated on USTB III database. This work demonstrates 97.9% average recognition accuracy using CNNs without any image preprocessing, which shows that the proposed approach is promising in the field of biometric recognition.