Real-Time Face Mask Detector Using Convolutional Neural Networks Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic provoked many changes in our everyday life. For instance, wearing protective face masks has become a new norm and is an essential measure, having been imposed by countries worldwide. As such, during these times, people must wear masks to enter buildings. In view of this compelling need, the objective of this paper is to create a real-time face mask detector that uses image recognition technology to identify: (i) if it can detect a human face in a video stream and (ii) if the human face, which was detected, was wearing an object that it looked like a face mask and if it was properly worn. Our face mask detection model is using OpenCV Deep Neural Network (DNN), TensorFlow and MobileNetV2 architecture as an image classifier and after training, achieved 99.64% of accuracy.