Patent ID: 7352880

Claim:
A face detection and tracking system for detecting and tracking a plurality of faces in real time from an input image, the system comprising: a background removing unit which extracts an area having a motion by removing a background image from the input image; a candidate area extracting unit which extracts a candidate area in which a face is possibly located in the area having a motion by using a skin color probability map (P skin ) generated from a face skin color model and a global probability map (P global ), wherein the candidate area extracting unit comprises: a skin color probability map generation unit which generates the skin color probability map (P skin ) of the area having a motion by using the face skin color model, a global probability map generation unit which extracts a plurality of highest points of the area having a motion, sets central coordinates at a predetermined distance from the plurality of highest points, and calculates a probability that a face is located within a distance from the central coordinates to generate the global probability map (P global ), and a multiple scale probability map generation unit which generates a multiple scale probability map about the probability that a face is located, by multiplying the skin color probability map (P skin ) and the global probability map (P global ), and extracts an area, in which the probability value of the generated multiple scale probability map is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold value, as the candidate area where a face is possibly located; a face area determination unit which extracts independent component analysis (ICA) features from the candidate area and determines whether the candidate area is a face area; and a face area tracking unit which tracks the face area according to a directional kernel indicating a probability that a face is located in a next frame based on the skin color probability map (P skin ).