International Conference on Intelligent Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing
Face Recognition Based on Chaotic Fuzzy RBF Neural Network
Meng Jian-liang Gao Wan-qing Pang Hui-jing Niu Wei-hua
College of Computer Science and Technic ,North China Electric Power University , Baoding ,
Hebei 071003,China
gaowanqing1006@163.com
Abstract
For its sensitive dependence with the initial value,
chaos can be used to the pattern recognition of the
ones with extremely small difference. An algorithm
based on chaotic fuzzy RBF neural network(CFRBF)
is proposed and used for face recognition. For
introducing chaotic noise, the network obtains a
better anti-jamming. It can avoid being affected by
the factors such as illumination and gesture. And
many complex feature extractions can be averted.
Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm
achieves excellent performance with high training
and recognition speed, high recognition rate as well
as very good illumination robustness.
1. Introduction
Human face recognition acts on a more and more
important role in a wide range of applications, such
as authentication, non-contact HCI[1], visual
communication[2,3], security system, scene
surveillance and criminal identification. The whole
recognition procedure includes two steps, feature
extraction and classification. However, face
recognition is extremely a challenge task since faces
exhibit significant variations in appearance due to
acquisition angle, variable illuminations, mood, pose
and aging variations. Several face recognition
methods are formed internationally such as
geometry-based, template-matching based, neural
networks-based, hidden Markov model-based,
dynamic link structure-based elastic graph matching,
SVM-based and movement and color information
based for dynamic image sequences recognition[4].
Neural networks is widely studied to be used in Face
recognition in recent years. Neural-networks-based
978-0-7695-3278-3/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/IIH-MSP.2008.51
methods have been proven to have many advantages
for classification because of their learning ability and
good generalization. In the past decade, various
methods have been proposed to improve recognition
performance. Many researches combined neural
networks with optimization algorithms to improve
research level in the field of face recognition by
neural network. Reference [5] has introduced a
method for face recognition that is utilizes shape
information ,neural network and genetic algorithms
approach . It can efficiently and effectively eliminate
the effect of uneven illuminations and enhance the
recognition rate. Reference [6] applied the theory of
fuzzy to the designing of RBF neural network,
combined the respective advantage of neural
networks and fuzzy function and derived satisfactory
results. This paper proposes an algorithm based on
chaotic fuzzy RBF neural networks, which is a little
improvement of the reference [6]. Chaos theory will
be introduced into the structure of neural network. As
the extremely sensitive dependence of the chaos to
the initial values, it makes possible to recognize
patterns with minor differences. Due to the
introduction of chaotic noises, the network will have
a strong anti-jamming capability, and can avoid
being affected by the factors such as illumination and
gesture effectively. And many complex feature
extractions can be averted. While fuzzy
characteristics improved the learning generalization
ability of neural networks and made a better
approximation to the actual models. Simulation
results conducted on the ORL and Yale face database
respectively show that the chaotic fuzzy RBF neural
network algorithm achieves excellent performance
with less iterative steps, high convergence and
recognition speed, high recognition rate as well as
very good illumination robustness.
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2. Feature extraction of face image
Feature extraction is an important link in face
recognition. Due to the variant sizes of the face
images, the analysis and dimension-reduction must
be implemented to gain better eigenvectors
representing the face images before recognition. The
purpose of feature extraction is just to reduce the
dimension of character space and keep the
recognition information with might and main.
At present, the main methods include the
principal component analysis (PCA)[7], the
independent component analysis (ICA)[8], Fisher
discriminant Analysis (FDA)[9],and multidimensional
scaling analysis (MDS)[10].Besides those linear
algorithms, S. Rowels has proposed non-linear
dimension-descend algorithms that is LLE [11,12] and
ISOMAP [13] to ensure the non-linear characteristics
of samples effectively. On the one hand, it can reduce
the dimension of data and the complexity of
computation, on the other hand, it preserves the
topologies of variety of face samples to avoid being
affected by the factors such as illumination and
gesture.
3. RBF neural network
RBF network is the best network for completing
mapping function of all feed-forward networks. The
construction of the RBF neural network involves
three different layers with feed forward architecture.
Gaussian function is adopted as the membership
function of neurons in hidden-layer. The output of
neurons in hidden layer is:
x-ci
2
u i = exp(- ) i=1,2,…,n
2σ i 2
Where ci denotes the center of vector for RBF, σ i 
denotes the radius, u i denotes the output of the ith
neuron in hidden-layer.
The output of neurons in the output layer is:
m where k represents the dimension of the feature
yk = ∑ wik ⋅ ui i=1,2,…,n; k=1,2,…,m
k =1
Where wik denotes the weight function in the output
layer.
4. Structure of chaotic fuzzy RBF neural
network
Based on the RBF neural network above, we
construct the environment parameters of the network
to give the fuzzy deducing ability to it. The
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introduction of the chaotic noise enhances the
associative memory performance of the network. The
topology of the chaos fuzzy RBF network is shown in
Figure 1.
Figure 1 ˊ Structure of chaotic fuzzy RBF neural
network
4.1. Topology of chaotic fuzzy RBF network
Consider a k-dimensional characteristics
L L
space F = { f1 , f 2 , ,f k } , m models c1 , c2 , , cm 
whose distribution in the feature space is standard
normal. The training sample space of the network
L
recorded as X= {X1 ,X 2 , ,X N } is composed by N
samples in identified-samples. If the number of
samples belonged to the ith model Ci is n i ,
m
then N= ∑ n i . By the statistic of these training
i=1
samples we could acquire the mean vector of each
L
model recorded as θi = (θ i1 ,θ i2 , ,θ ik ) k and
variance vector recorded as δ i = (δ i1 ,δ i2 , L ,δ ik )k .
Where θij  δ ij denotes the mean and variance of the
jth feature in Pattern i respectively.
Oik is defined as the current output of the ith
neuron in Layer k , uik is defined as the current
input of the ith neuron in Layer k.
Layer 1(input layer): the input vector is transfer
to the next layer directly: 
O1i (t) = u1i (t) ˈˈLˈ
i =12 k
space.
Layer 2(chaotic and fuzzy layer): In this layer,
each node made the input variables chaotic and fuzzy.
The Gauss radial basis function is adopted here as a
fuzzy membership function of neuron. This layer is
composed by n neurons, which is divided into m
groups. Each group contains k neurons. Then, n = m
h k and input-output relationship of the jth neuron in
the ith group is
 1 [u ij2 (t) − mij (t)]2
Oij2 (t) = μ Aij (u ij2 ) = exp{−
2πσ ij 2[σ ij (t)] 2

Where mij and σ ij represent the mean, and the
variance of the Gaussian function separately. μAij 
denotes the degree of membership of the jth character
1
} The algorithm takes the E (t ) = (T − O 4 ) as the
2
Performance indicators to adjust network parameter
in order to minimize the E (t ) 
According to the negative gradient and chain law,
the update rule of the adjusting parameters defined as
follows
of the input sample attributes to the pattern Ci The w(t + 1) = w(t) + Δw(t) = w(t) + η (−∂E(t) / ∂w(t)) 
outputs of the neurons in the ith group in the chaotic where W denotes w4  w3  β  m  γ  σ  η is
L
fuzzy layer (μ Ai1 ,μAi2 , ,μAik )T is made of the vector learning rate. The gradient of error E with respect to
of membership of the input samples to the pattern W is
Ci .The k-dimensional eigenvector from the input  ∂E(t) / ∂w(t) = −e∂O 4 (t) / ∂w(t) ˄˅
layer was translated into the degrees of membership The jth output in layer 4 is
of each character to each pattern by the fuzzification m k

disposal. And that is the fuzzification process. O 4j (t) = ∑ w ij4 (t)∏ (w ij3 / 2πσ ij ) * 
i =1 j =1
The Logistic chaotic map is introduced in this
 exp{−[ β ij (t ) xi + xij (t ) − mij ] / 2[σ ij (t)] } 
c 2 2
layer. First make it digitized:
x(k) = γ (k)x(k-1)(N − x(k-1)) / N ,γ ∈ (3.6,4)  From (1)(2)and(3),it is easy to derive the update
The chaos process is adding chaotic control into rule:
input variables, thus the input variable at time t in Δwij4 (t ) = η eOi3 (t ) 
layer 2 is
Δwij4 (t ) = η ewij4 (t )Oi3 (t ) / wij3 (t ) 
u ij2 (t) = βij (t)u1i (t) + x ijc (t) 
Where Δβ ij (t) = −η ew ij4 (t )Oi3 [ βij (t ) xi + xijc (t ) − mij ]xi /[σ ij (t)]2
x ijc (t) = γ ij (t)x ijc (t-1)(N − x ijc (t-1)) / N  

Layer 3(rule layer): Nodes in this layer are called Δmij (t) = η ew ij4 (t )Oi3 [ β ij (t ) xi + xijc (t ) − mij (t )]/[σ ij (t)]2
rule nodes, and each of them denotes a term of rule. 
These neurons accomplish map operation from fuzzy Δγ ij (t) = −η ew ij4 (t )Oi3 {[ βij (t ) xi + xijc (t ) − mij ] /[σ ij (t)]2 }*
rule to output space. The output of each node is the 
multiplied-weight of all the input signals of the node:
x (t − 1)( N − xijc (t − 1)) / N 
c

L, m
k ij
O (t ) = ∏ w O (t)
3
i
3
i
2
ij i = 1, 2, Where e = T − O 4 (t ) T denotes the target output.
j =1

Iterate in this way until the E (t ) became small
DŽ
Layer 4(output layer): The output of this layer is
linear combination of consequences of last layer. enough
That is to say, this layer accomplishment summed-
weight defuses operation. 5. Experiment and discussion
L, m 
m
O j (t) = ∑ w (t)u (t)
4 4
ij
4
i j = 1, 2,
i =1
In order to evaluate the proposed face recognition
algorithm, our experiments are performed on two
Where w denotes the weight function in output
4
ij
benchmark face databases: the ORL database and the
layer, u i 4 (t ) = Oi3 (t )  Yale database.

5.1. Testing on the ORL database
4.2. Learning algorithms of chaotic fuzzy
RBF network The original images of the experiment are made
up of 10 faces of person in ORL face database. Each
The following learning algorithm based on of them applies 10 face images with the size of 112
gradient descent. The deviation is the same as that of
the back-propagation (BP) learning law.
h 92 and the gray-level of 256. The chosen of
training set and testing set has two options:
Option 1: The training set is made up of 50 face
images coming from the first 5 ones of every person.

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While the testing set is formed by 50 face images
coming from the last 5 ones of every person.
Option 2: The training set is made up of 20 face
images coming from the first 2 ones of every person.
While the testing set is formed by 80 face images
coming from the last 8 ones of every person.
ˊ
Table 1 Comparison between CFRBF and other
algorithms (%)
The performance of the CFRBF method in
comparison with some existing algorithms for face
recognition is listed in the Table 1. From the table we
can see that the performance of the CFRBF is slightly
better than other methods if the training samples are
appropriately chosen. When the number of the
training samples is reduced dramatically, the
recognition performance of CFRBF will decline
slightly, but still be satisfied. But the MLP and BP
will no longer meet the practical needs. It can be seen
that the CFRBF algorithm exhibits better
performance than others and has high tolerance.
5.2. Testing on the Yale database
Yale database contains 165 frontal face images
covering 15 individuals taken under 11 different
conditions. Here 5 images are randomly selected as
the training samples and the total 11 images as test
images.
ˊ
Table 2 Comparison of CFRBF to the nearest
neighbor
The comparison of CFRBF to the nearest
neighbor is shown in Table 2. It can be seen that the
classifier based on CFRBF gains a better
generalization capability and has unique advantages
in dealing with few samples. Table 3denotes different
performance when the methods extracting the feature
is different. It is shown that feature extraction can
improve the recognition accuracy effectively. The
combination between CFRBF and feature extraction
possesses of a prospective potential.
ˊ
Table 3 The recognition accuracies of different
feature extractions
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