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APPLICATION OF FACE RECOGNITION WITH

MOBILE PHONES

Article January 2003

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 APPLICATION OF FACE RECOGNITION WITH
MOBILE PHONES
Sandro da Silva
Department of Computer Science
University of the Western Cape
Bellville, 7535
Email: sdasilva@uwc.ac.za
Abstract A major driver behind building 3G networks is to
increase revenue through new data services, and to counteract
the gradual decrease in voice revenue. To achieve this, new
data services (IP and multimedia services) need to be increased
through the offering of rich content to mobile phone handsets
and wireless devices. Increasing capabilities of mobile phone
handsets implies that new computing intensive data applications
can be implemented. Face recognition is attracting much
attention in network multimedia information access. Areas
such as network security, content indexing and retrieval, and
video compression will benefit from face recognition technology
because people are the center of attention in a lot of video.
Network access control via face recognition not only makes
stealing of passwords by hacking virtually impossible, but also
increases the user-friendliness in human-computer interaction.
We are studying the existing face recognition algorithms, vis a
vis their strengths and weaknesses including recognition rate.
We are also evaluating the complexity of algorithms such as
color histogram, face shape detection and skin colour methods
that we have found suitable for implementation on handheld
devices. Colour histogram, skin colour detection algorithms
and face matching have low implementation complexity that
we have found suitable for authentication of cellular network
services. Novel approaches for reducing the complexities of
these algorithms and fast implementation are introduced in our
paper.
Keywords: face recognition, 2G networks, 3G networks,
mobile phone handsets.
I. I NTRODUCTION
A new generation of fast, data-rich, IP and multimedia
services accessed instantly over mobile handsets is emerging
worldwide. 3G is the technology which makes this possible.
Every telecom operator, developer and vendor in the world is
going to be affected by this technology as telecommunications
evolves towards a third generation of networks, services and
applications.
Existing 2G mobile networks are either GSM or CDMA
based offering data rates well below PC modems. 3G
technologies will however allow operators to send data
across wireless networks at up to 2 Mbps. In the evolution
of 2G to 3G networks, some operators will upgrade and
adapt their existing 2G networks whereas others will build
completely new 3G networks. The deployment of such
Johnson I. Agbinya
Department of Computer Science
University of the Western Cape
Bellville, 7535
Email:jagbinya@bigpond.net.au
advanced technology is not financially feasible if it is
deployed only for voice traffic. Therefore, there is a very high
demand for IP and multimedia services that will optimize
the use of this technology. The face provides a variety of
different communicative functions such as identification,
the perception of emotional expressions and so on. Face
recognition is attracting much attention in network multimedia
information access.
We are studying the existing face recognition algorithms,
vis a vis their strengths and weaknesses including recognition
rate. We are also evaluating the complexity of algorithms
such as color histogram, face shape detection and skin colour
methods that we have found suitable for implementation on
handheld devices. Colour histogram, skin colour detection
algorithms and face matching have low implementation
complexity that we have found suitable for authentication of
cellular network services. Novel approaches for reducing the
complexities of these algorithms and fast implementation are
introduced in our paper.
A. Current Status
Basically we have to accomplish three tasks: image
acquisition, face detection and face recognition. Image
acquisition task is a hardware task; therefore we are
examining the pros and cons of having the face recognition
system on the handheld device or on a server to which the
device has access. We are doing that using parameters such
as how feasible, complex, easy and desirable are the two
forms of solutions.
At this point in time we have investigated some low
complexity face detection algorithms[4,5], and have found
that in order to realize a real-time system, we need to use
the skin detection algorithm[4] for the face detection task.
We have examined the performance profile[2,3] of the three
ubiquitous. Face recognition algorithms for the recognition
stage and have chosen to use the PCA based classifier
[1], which is the standard simple algorithm suitable for
implementation on handheld devices.
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1) Work to be completed: We have to investigate the Face
normalization process and choose a suitable algorithm. Once
that is completed we will move on to the implementation of
the above algorithms for face detection and recognition. We
will have to look at existing technologies for video streaming
to mobile phones and investigate the possibility of feeding it
from a wireless to a mobile phone.

II. C ONCLUSION
This system is aimed to increase mobile phone usage by
providing a new source of data traffic that is carried by a
data network. Because the system will be deployed in many
locations the data traffic generated will be high and the system
will then have the potential to generate revenue for an operator.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the Telkom Center of
Excellenc and Department of Computer Science at the
University of the Western Cape for making this research
possible.

R EFERENCES
[1] M. A. Turk and A. P. Pentland. Face Recognition Using Eigenfaces.
In Proc. Of IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern
Recognition,pages 586 - 591, June 1991.

[2] J. Zhang, Y. Yan and M. Lades, Face Recognition: Eigenface, elastic

matching and neural nets, IEEE 85, 1423-1435 (1997).

[3] A. U. Batur and B. Flinchbaugh, Performance Analysis of Face

Recognition Algorithms on TMS320C64x. Texas Instruments:
Application Report, 2002.

[4] Lanitis, C. J. Taylor and T. F. Cootes: Recognising Human Faces Using

Shape and Gray-Level Information . Int. Conf. On Automation Robotics
and Computer Vision, 1994, pp. 1153-1157. Pattern Recognition, 1996.

[5] Wu H., Yokoyama T., Pramadihanto D., Yachida M.: Face and Facial
Feature Extraction from Color Image. Proc. of the It. Conf. on Automatic
Face- and Gesture- Recognition, 1996

III. AUTHOR S B IOGRAPHY

Sandro da Silva: obtained a B.Sc. honours in computer
science in 2002 at the University of the Western Cape. He is
currently studying towards his M.Sc. degree.