Seeing people in the dark: Face recognition in infrared images

Abstract

An IR image of the human face presents its unique heat-signature and can be used for recognition. The characteristics of IR images maintain advantages over visible light images, and can be used to improve algorithms of human face recognition in several aspects. IR images are obviously invariant under extreme lighting conditions (including complete darkness). The main findings of this research are that IR face images are less effected by changes of pose or facial expression and enable a simple method for detection of facial features. In this paper we explore several aspects of face recognition in IR images. First, we compare the effect of varying environment conditions over IR and visible light images through a case study. Finally, we propose a method for automatic face recognition in IR images, through which we use a preprocessing algorithm for detecting facial elements, and show the applicability of commonly used face recognition methods in the visible light domain.