A complete fuzzy discriminant analysis approach for face recognition

In this paper, some studies have been made on the essence of fuzzy linear discriminant analysis (F-LDA) algorithm and fuzzy support vector machine (FSVM) classifier, respectively. As a kernel-based learning machine, FSVM is represented with the fuzzy membership function while realizing the same classification results with that of the conventional pair-wise classification. It outperforms other learning machines especially when unclassifiable regions still remain in those conventional classifiers. However, a serious drawback of FSVM is that the computation requirement increases rapidly with the increase of the number of classes and training sample size. To address this problem, an improved FSVM method that combines the advantages of FSVM and decision tree, called DT-FSVM, is proposed firstly. Furthermore, in the process of feature extraction, a reformative F-LDA algorithm based on the fuzzy k-nearest neighbors (FKNN) is implemented to achieve the distribution information of each original sample represented with fuzzy membership grade, which is incorporated into the redefinition of the scatter matrices. In particular, considering the fact that the outlier samples in the patterns may have some adverse influence on the classification result, we developed a novel F-LDA algorithm using a relaxed normalized condition in the definition of fuzzy membership function. Thus, the classification limitation from the outlier samples is effectively alleviated. Finally, by making full use of the fuzzy set theory, a complete F-LDA (CF-LDA) framework is developed by combining the reformative F-LDA (RF-LDA) feature extraction method and DT-FSVM classifier. This hybrid fuzzy algorithm is applied to the face recognition problem, extensive experimental studies conducted on the ORL and NUST603 face images databases demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.