Feature subset selection for face detection using genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization

This paper has introduced a new method for feature subset selection to which less attention has been given. The most of the past works have emphasized feature extraction, classification and using classical methods for these works. The main goal in feature extraction is presented data in lower dimension. One of the popular methods in feature extraction is principle component analysis (PCA). This method and similar methods rely mostly on powerful classification algorithms to deal with redundant and irrelevant features. In this paper we introduced particle swarm optimization (PSO) as a simple, general, and powerful framework for selecting good subsets of features, leading to improved detection rates. We used PCA for feature extraction and support vector machines (SVMs) for classification. The goal is to search the PCA space using PSO to select a subset of eigenvectors encoding important information about the target concept of interest. An other object in this paper is to increase speed of convergence by using PSO to find the best feature. We have tested the frame work in mind on challenging application like face detection. Our results illustrate the significant improvement in this case.