A general review of human face detection including a study of neural networks and Haar feature-based cascade classifier in face detection

Face detection is an interesting area in research application of computer vision and pattern recognition, especially during the past several years. It is also plays a vital role in surveillance systems which is the first steps in face recognition systems. The high degree of variation in the appearance of human faces causes the face detection as a complex problem in computer vision. The face detection systems aimed to decrease false positive rate and increase the accuracy of detecting face especially in complex background images. The main aim of this paper is to present an up-to-date review of face detection methods including feature-based, appearance-based, knowledge-based and template matching. Also, the study presents the effect of applying Haar-like features along with neural networks. We also conclude this paper with some discussions on how the work can be taken further.