Multiple-Classifier Combination based on Image Degradation Model for Low-Quality Image Recognition

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a multiple classifier combination method based on image degradation modeling to improve recognition performance on low-quality images. Using an image degradation model, it generates a set of classifiers each of which is specialized for a specific image quality. In recognition, it combines the results of the recognizers by weighted averaging to decide the final result. At this time, the weight of each recognizer is dynamically decided from the estimated quality of the input image. It assigns large weight to the recognizer specialized to the estimated quality of the input image, but small weight to other recognizers. As the result, it can effectively adapt to image quality variation. Moreover, being a multiple-classifier system, it shows more reliable performance then the single-classifier system on low-quality images. In the experiment, the proposed multiple-classifier combination method achieved higher recognition rate than multiple-classifier combination systems not considering the image quality or single classifier systems considering the image quality.