Method and system for face image recognition

A system for face image recognition, comprising:

• a memory that stores executable units;
• and
• a processor electronically coupled to the memory to execute the executable units to perform operations of the system, wherein, the executable units comprise:
• a generating unit configured to generate one or more face region pairs of face images to be compared and recognized;
• a forming unit configured to form a plurality of feature modes by exchanging the two face regions of each face region pair and horizontally flipping each face region of each face region pair;
• one or more convolutional neural networks configured to receive the plurality of feature modes, each of which forms a plurality of input maps, and the convolutional neural networks is further configured to extract identity relational features hierarchically from the input maps, which reflect identity similarities of the compared face images;
• and
• a recognizing unit configured to recognize whether the face images belong to same identity based on the identity relational features of the compared face images.

A plurality of convolutional neural networks for extracting identity relational features for a face image recognition system, wherein each convolutional neural network comprises a plurality of convolutional layers, the identity relational features comprise local low-level relational features and global high-level relational features, each convolutional neural network is configured to:

• receive one particular feature mode of one particular face region pair from the face image recognition system to form a plurality of input maps;
• extract local low-level relational features from the input maps in lower convolutional layers of the convolutional neural network;
• and
• extract global high-level relational features based on the extracted local low-level relational features in subsequent layers of the convolutional neural network, the extracted global high-level relational features reflect identity similarities of the compared face images.