Automatic ear recognition by force field transformations

The objective in defining feature space is to reduce the dimension of pattern space yet maintaining discriminatory power for classification, together with invariant description. To meet this objective in the context of ear biometrics a novel force field transformation has been developed in which the image is treated as an array of Gaussian attractors that act as the source of a force field. The directional properties of the force field are exploited to automatically locate a small number of potential energy wells and channels that form the basis of the ear description. This has been applied to a small database of ears and initial results show that the new approach can be used for automatic ear recognition