Face mask detection in foggy weather from digital images using transfer learning

Abstract

ABSTRACT Community mask use is an efficacious non-pharmacologic way to minimize viral infection spread. It is a recommendation that individuals wear face masks as protective gear. Under ideal weather conditions, machine and artificial intelligence techniques can typically determine if a person is wearing a mask properly. Identification becomes more difficult under inclement weather such as fog, clouds, haze or rain. In this work, we propose a technique that can detect a human face wearing a mask even in adverse weather. For this, homogeneous foggy images have been considered. The main challenge with this problem is that video quality degrades because of fog. Here, diverse Deep learning models train regular datasets containing digital pictures of persons with facial and non-facial masks. The training and validation parameters ensure 97% accuracy in classifying faces wearing a mask.