Embedded door access control systems based on face recognition: A survey

The implementation of face recognition techniques in an embedded system is a very important aspect of various security applications, such as authorization identification in cash machines and door access for employee attendance. The purpose of this paper is to survey the existing hardware implementations of a face recognition system, particularly those who used for developing an embedded door access control system. This includes a brief discussion about face recognition algorithms and the hardware platforms outlining the importance of using a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device, which can be used to design an embedded door access control system. It is found that the success of any door access control system depends on the type of face recognition algorithm in the feature extraction phase of the face recognition system and the selected hardware device. Based on a comparison between different feature extraction algorithms, the use of a hybrid feature extraction technique can improve the accuracy of face recognition system. An efficient door access control system can be obtained using a FPGA device, which is preferable because of its technical characteristics of parallelism, re-programmability and very high speed, in the implementation of a face recognition system.