FACE RECOGNITION SYSTEM USING PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS (PCA) AND
DISCRETE WAVELET TRANSFORM (DWT)
Mati Ur Rahman Khan
S21PWELE245
Department of Electrical Engineering
UET Peshawar
Abstract – Instead of employing the standard PCA
approach, the suggested technique, PCA fused with Discrete
Wavelet Transform (DWT), can improve the performance of
face recognition systems. The most important factors in face
recognition system are its accuracy and processing time. In
the applied technique the size of image first reduced by
Discrete Wavelet Transform before putting forward to PCA.
Extraction of image features is carried out by calculating
Eigenface while the size of data already reduced one fourth
as compared to conventional PCA. With the suggested
method, the size of the train database is decreased without
compromising the accuracy of face recognition. By
contrasting the experimental findings of traditional PCA and
the suggested approach in this research, it is demonstrated
that the performance of face recognition systems is improved
in terms of low processing time.
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, face recognition is rapidly growing
technology especially in the field of security recent years.
This type of technology uses special algorithms to detect and
analyze facial features, such as the shape and size of the
eyes, nose, and mouth, to create a unique facial profile for
each individual [1]. This facial profile is then compared to a
database of known faces to verify identity. This technology
has been rapidly growing in recent years, with advancements
in computer vision, artificial intelligence, and deep learning
allowing for more accurate and reliable facial recognition. It
is now being adopted by governments, businesses, and other
organizations as a secure form of authentication. It is also
becoming more commonplace in consumer products, such as
smartphones and security systems, as a convenient and secure
way to unlock devices or gain access to secure areas [2]. The
history of face recognition research dates back as far as the
19th century, when Francis Galton first proposed the idea of
using physical features for identifying individuals. However,
it wasn’t until the mid-1970s that face recognition algorithms
and technologies became feasible [3-4].
Early experiments in face recognition used algorithms that
relied on manually locating and matching facial features.
This approach was improved upon in the 1980s and 1990s as
more sophisticated algorithms were developed that could
accurately identify facial features without the need for
manual processing. More recently, advancements in
Gusher Khan
17JZELE0166
Department of Electrical Engineering
UET Peshawar
computer vision, artificial intelligence, and deep learning
have further improved face recognition accuracy and enabled
the technology to be used in a variety of real-world
applications [5]. For face recognition systems, there are
primarily two sorts of approaches: constituent based method
(feature based technique) and faced based approach. The
constituent-based approach works by extracting and
analyzing key facial features such as the eyes, nose, mouth,
and chin, and then creating a unique facial signature for each
individual [6]. The other method face-based approach
accumulates the most important features from the face and
sort the data in coordinates form. This method have greater
accuracy but the processing time is the limitation.
Nearly all of the approaches ignored compression rate in
favor of recognition rate. However, database compression is
crucial for a number of applications, including reduced hard
drive space usage and faster processing.
PCA
Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is an effective
technique for reducing the dimensionality of large image
datasets. It works by extracting a set of representative
principal components from the data set and then using these
components to reconstruct the data set in a smaller number of
dimensions [7]. PCA can reduce the number of dimensions of
an image from hundreds to just a few, while still preserving
most of the information from the original image. This process
involves projecting the original data onto a lower
dimensional space, which results in a much more compact
representation of the data.
For dimensionality reduction of data set images matrices are
converted to vector. The vectors are organised into a number
of columns when there are many images.
Eigenfaces are a specific type of principal component that
can be calculated using Principal Component Analysis
(PCA). They are special because they are able to represent
the original data set in a smaller number of dimensions while
still preserving most of the information from the original data
set. Eigenfaces are particularly useful in computer vision
applications, where they can be used to detect faces in a
picture or to identify people in an image [8]. To calculate
eigenfaces, the original data set is first transformed into a
numerical matrix and then used as the input for PCA. The
resulting principal components are then used to reconstruct
the data set in a smaller number of dimensions. This process
results in a much more compact representation of the data,
while still preserving most of the original image's
information.
For dimensionality reduction, convert the image into matrix
X=[A(i)] (1)
Where A[i] shows a vector of order.
Calculate the mean of matrix
𝑀=,1-/𝑀., ∑ - - .,𝐴-𝑖.
Center matrix is the difference between image vectors and
mean and calculated as
𝑌=,,,𝐴-(1).−𝑀.,,𝐴-(2).−𝑀.……,,𝐴-(𝑚).−𝑀..
Calculate the covariance matrix i.e. product of centre matrix
to its transpose
𝐶=,∑i=1𝑌,𝑌-′.
Compute the values of eigenvector and eigenvalues using by
applying following formulaes:
|𝜆𝐼−𝐶|=0 ,
𝐶𝑋=𝜆𝑋 , where
Where C is the covariance matrix, X is eigenvector,
λ is the corresponding eigenvalue and I is the identity
matrix.
Here, C represents covariance matrix, X an eigenvector, λ is
the corresponding eigenvalue and I is the identity matrix.
Figure 1: Block Diagram of PCA
Each eigenvector represents a direction of variance. The
eigenvector corresponding to the largest eigenvalue will give
the direction of maximum variance. This is the first principal
component.
Then, the eigenvector corresponding to the 2nd largest
eigenvalue will give the direction of the second largest
variance. This is the second principal component. To get
higher order of compression, eigenvector with zero
eigenvalues or less than a certain value can be removed. The
whole process can be express via block figure 1.
DWT
Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is a technique used to
represent signals and images in a way that allows for efficient
processing and analysis [8]. It decomposes the image into a
series of sub-bands, each of which can be represented in a
way that makes it easier to analyse and process. DWT is
particularly useful for tasks such as compression, de-noising,
and edge detection, as it allows for more efficient processing
of the data than traditional methods.
The filters are then applied to the columns of each of the new
images, producing four new images known as sub-bands.
These sub-bands display information of the image in the
frequency domain. These sub-bands are labelled LL, HL, LH
and HH. LL sub-band retains the full detail of the image,
making it a more condensed version of the original. HL holds
horizontal data, LH contains vertical information, and HH
provides diagonal details of the image. Out of the four sub-
bands, only LL is processed during the decomposition as it
contains most of the image's information. Each level of
decomposition generates four new images from the original
pixel.
METHODOLOGY
The methodology consist of two major steps
1. Training database
2. Face recognition in training set
Training the data base
Read the face images and then apply the DWT on the
images. Then next step is to compute the eigenvector of
covariance matrix. Most significant vector is placed and
eigenvector and neglecting the vector with zero values.
Figure 2: Training the Database
Recognition of face in Training Database
Make input file which is to be recognized. Apply DWT on
the input image. Compute the recognizing pattern for the
image using eigenvector and covariance matrix. Now,
compare the input image RPV to the each RPV present in the
training database. Check the image RPV which have the
minimum distance from the input image. There should be a
fixed value, which will decide that whether the image is
recognized or not. The process is described in the figure 3.
 It can be seen from graph that the Percentage accuracy
of PCA+DWT is 74.5% and of PCA is 73.125%.The
accuracy is getting a bit improved.

Figure 3: Recognition of face in database

Implementation of DWT Figure 4 Accuracy comparison of PCA with PCA+DWT

The main goal to apply DWT to image is the image
compression before data goes to the PCA for dimensionality Processing Time Result
reduction. When DWT is applied to image, it will be divided The image size is 480×360 and after applying DWT the size
into four sub-bands. These sub-bands contain the image of image is reduced to 324×244. By applying DWT, the
information. The LL is the lowest band which contain most of Eigen faces calculated by PCA+DWT (79056) are one fourth
information almost enough for recognition phenomena. This of the Eigen faces calculated by PCA (307200). Due to
is how image is compressed before PCA application. decrease in the computational steps or comparisons the
processing time become less. It can be clearly seen from the
Implementation of PCA graphs that processing time becomes low with compromising
Before reaching to PCA application, the data compression the efficiency of the recognition system.
takes place due to the implementation of DWT. Before
application tools of PCA, the image is reduced to one fourth
of the original data. Now it is put forward to PCA. Data is
present in vector form such that each entry of vector
represent an image. The image to be tested pass through the
above mentioned processes and eigenvector is obtained. The
eigenvector of the image to be tested is then compared to the
eigenvector of the training set. The distance found between
both vectors is known as Euclidean distance(Ed). To avoid
erroneous picture acceptance detection, a threshold value is
used. The face recognition system rejects the image if the
Euclidean distance is higher than the threshold since the
image cannot be accurately recognised.

RESULTS Figure 5 processing time comparison for training of images

In order to obtain better results AT&T database is used. REFRENCES
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