Face recognition using message passing based clustering method

Traditional subspace analysis methods are inefficient and tend to be affected by noise as they compare the test image to all training images, especifically when there are large numbers of training images. To solve such problem, we propose a fast face recognition (FR) technique called APLDA by combining a novel clustering method affinity propagation (AP) with linear discriminant analysis (LDA). By using AP on the reduced features derived from LDA, a representative face image for each subject can be reached. Thus, our APLDA uses only the representative images rather than all training images for identification. Obviously, APLDA is much more computationally efficient than Fisherface. Also, unlike Fisherface who uses pattern classifier for identification, APLDA performs the identification using AP once again to cluster the test image into one of the representative images. Experimental results also indicate that APLDA outperforms Fisherface in terms of recognition rate.