Face Detection and Verification Using Lensless Cameras

Camera-based face detection and verification have advanced to the point where they are ready to be integrated into myriad applications, from household appliances to Internet of Things devices to drones. Many of these applications impose stringent constraints on the form-factor, weight, and cost of the camera package that cannot be met by current-generation lens-based imagers. Lensless imaging systems provide an increasingly promising alternative that radically changes the form-factor and reduces the weight and cost of a camera system. However, lensless imagers currently cannot offer the same image resolution and clarity of their lens-based counterparts. This paper details a first-of-its-kind evaluation of the potential and efficacy of lensless imaging systems for face detection and verification. We propose the usage of existing deep learning techniques for face detection and verification that account for the resolution, noise, and artifacts inherent in today's lensless cameras. We demonstrate that both face detection and verification can be performed with high accuracy from the images acquired from lensless cameras, which paves the way to their integration into new applications. A key component of our study is a dataset of 24 112 lensless camera images captured using FlatCam of 88 subjects in a range of different operating conditions.