Robust and Lightweight System for Gait-Based Gender Classification toward Viewing Angle Variations

Abstract

In computer vision applications, gait-based gender classification is a challenging task as a person may walk at various angles with respect to the camera viewpoint. In some of the viewing angles, the person’s limb movement can be occluded from the camera, preventing the perception of the gait-based features. To solve this problem, this study proposes a robust and lightweight system for gait-based gender classification. It uses a gait energy image (GEI) for representing the gait of an individual. A discrete cosine transform (DCT) is applied on GEI to generate a gait-based feature vector. Further, this DCT feature vector is applied to XGBoost classifier for performing gender classification. To improve the classification results, the XGBoost parameters are tuned. Finally, the results are compared with the other state-of-the-art approaches. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated on the OU-MVLP dataset. The experiment results show a mean CCR (correct classification rate) of 95.33% for the gender classification. The results obtained from various viewpoints of OU-MVLP illustrate the robustness of the proposed system for gait-based gender classification.