Evaluation of radar measurements of masked and unmasked human faces
Publish date: 2012-10-08
Report number: FOI-R--3478--SE
Pages: 40
Written in: English
Keywords:
- Radar
- face recognition
Abstract
This report describes radar measurements of masked and unmasked faces in different situations. The application in mind is face recognition behind masking with safety, security and forensic use. A radar system operating in the sub-millimeter or the millimeter wave region may provide both penetrating and resolution properties useful for such applications. Measurement data was obtained through a research project financed by the US Navy and was generated using a radar system developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, USA. It is an imaging 675 GHz system with a spatial resolution of about 1x1x1 cm3. Earlier studies at FOI on face recognition include theoretical and experimental activities as well as simulations. Two set of measurements were performed. In 2010, two different cases of one test person were measured with the radar system. The person was measured from a frontal view with and without a ski mask. In 2011, a total of 25 measurements were made for eight different scenarios. The scenarios covered both masked and unmasked faces. The test persons sat down in all scenarios and their faces were viewed at a frontal viewing aspect in most scenarios. The exceptions were two scenarios where the head was turned 30° right and left, respectively, and one scenario where the head was turning at approximately 10°/sec. In one scenario the test person was talking during the measurements. The evaluation has been focused on relating the acquired radar data to the possibilities of face identification in forensic applications, to investigate the feasibility of a radar face recognition system. It can be concluded that the information from an operational system with accuracies corresponding to the measurement system seems to be useful in many cases. Classification of a subject in order to divert the suspicion from a person seems possible but to point out and highly increase the suspicion towards a certain person requires much more information.