Implementation of optical correlator for face recognition applications

The main purpose of this work is to put together the benefits of the optical correlator which is VunderLaugt (VLC) correlator method for face recognition applications. With this aim in mind, we compare the performances of VLC correlator based on the fast Fourier transform (FFT) with the optical Fourier Transform (NO_FT) based on Fraunhofer diffraction. To achieve this goal, numerical implementation of the optical FT is needed. In this paper, we suggest and validate an all-numerical implementation of a VLC correlator with optical FT. Different tests using the Pointing Head Pose Image Database (PHPID) and considering faces with vertical and horizontal rotations were performed. The receiving operating characteristics (ROC) curves show that the optical FT simulating the Fraunhofer diffraction leads to better performances than the FFT.