Face Detection Based on Skin Color Segmentation Using Fuzzy Entropy

Face detection is the first step of any automated face recognition system. One of the most popular approaches to detect faces in color images is using a skin color segmentation scheme, which in many cases needs a proper representation of color spaces to interpret image information. In this paper, we propose a fuzzy system for detecting skin in color images, so that each color tone is assumed to be a fuzzy set. The Red, Green, and Blue (RGB), the Hue, Saturation and Value (HSV), and the YCbCr (where Y is the luminance and Cb, Cr are the chroma components) color systems are used for the development of our fuzzy design. Thus, a fuzzy three-partition entropy approach is used to calculate all of the parameters needed for the fuzzy systems, and then, a face detection method is also developed to validate the segmentation results. The results of the experiments show a correct skin detection rate between 94% and 96% for our fuzzy segmentation methods, with a false positive rate of about 0.5% in all cases. Furthermore, the average correct face detection rate is above 93%, and even when working with heterogeneous backgrounds and different light conditions, it achieves almost 88% correct detections. Thus, our method leads to accurate face detection results with low false positive and false negative rates.