Robust face recognition by utilizing colour information and sparse representation

In this paper, we consider the problem of robust face recognition using color information. In this context, sparse representation-based algorithms are the state-of-the-art solutions for gray facial images. We will integrate the existing sparse representation-based algorithms with color information and this integration can improve the previous performances significantly. Furthermore, we propose a new performance metric, namely the discriminativeness (DIS) to describe the recognition effectiveness for sparse representation algorithms. We find out that the richer information in color space can be used to increase the DIS, i.e. enhancing the robustness in face recognition. Extensive experiments have been conducted under different conditions, including various feature extractors, random pixel corruptions and occlusions on AR and GT databases, to demonstrate the advantages of using color information in robust face recognition. Detailed analysis is also included for each experiment to explain why and how color improve the robustness of different sparse representation-based methods