Patent ID: 8897501

Claim:
A face detection device for detecting the face of a person in an input image, the face detection device comprising: a face detection circuit including a hardware circuit configured to detect a face area in an input image; a signal processing circuit configured to perform signal processing based on an input image signal in accordance with a rewritable program that includes a face detection program for detecting a face in an input image; and a controller configured to allow the face detection circuit and the signal processing circuit to perform face detection in a parallel manner on an image of a frame or on respective images of adjacent frames among consecutive frames, wherein the controller outputs a final face detection result based on face detection results obtained by the face detection circuit and the signal processing circuit, and wherein the controller is configured to selectively output one of information based on a face detection result obtained by the face detection circuit or information based on a face detection result obtained by the signal processing circuit as a final face detection result, and in a case where the face detection result obtained by the face detection circuit is output as the final detection result, the controller stops face detection performed by the signal processing circuit.