Radial basis function neural network-based face recognition using firefly algorithm

This paper presents an adaptive technique for obtaining centers of the hidden layer neurons of radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) for face recognition. The proposed technique uses firefly algorithm to obtain natural sub-clusters of training face images formed due to variations in pose, illumination, expression and occlusion, etc. Movement of fireflies in a hyper-dimensional input space is controlled by tuning the parameter gamma () of firefly algorithm which plays an important role in maintaining the trade-off between effective search space exploration, firefly convergence, overall computational time and the recognition accuracy. The proposed technique is novel as it combines the advantages of evolutionary firefly algorithm and RBFNN in adaptive evolution of number and centers of hidden neurons. The strength of the proposed technique lies in its fast convergence, improved face recognition performance, reduced feature selection overhead and algorithm stability. The proposed technique is validated using benchmark face databases, namely ORL, Yale, AR and LFW. The average face recognition accuracies achieved using proposed algorithm for the above face databases outperform some of the existing techniques in face recognition.