Real-Time Multi-View Face Tracking for Human-Robot Interaction

For face tracking in a video sequence, various face tracking algorithms have been proposed. However, most of them have difficulty in finding the initial position and size of a face automatically. In this paper, we present a fast and robust method for fully automatic multi-view face detection and tracking. Using a small number of critical rectangle features selected and trained by the Adaboost learning algorithm, we can detect the initial position, size and view of a face correctly. Once a face is reliably detected, we can extract face and upper body color distribution from the detected facial regions and upper body regions for building robust color modeling respectively. Simultaneously, each color modeling is performed by using k-means clustering and multiple Gaussian models. Then, fast and efficient multi-view face tracking is executed by using several critical features. Our proposed algorithm is robust to rotation, partial occlusions, and scale changes in front of dynamic, unstructured background. In addition, our proposed method is computationally efficient. Therefore, it can be executed in real-time