Augmenting Deep Learning Performance in an Evidential Multiple Classifier System

International audienceThe main objective of this work is to study the applicability of ensemble methods in the context of deep learning with limited amounts of labeled data. We exploit an ensemble of neural networks derived using Monte Carlo dropout, along with an ensemble of SVM classifiers which owes its effectiveness to the hand-crafted features used as inputs and to an active learning procedure. In order to leverage each classifier's respective strengths, we combine them in an evidential framework, which models specifically their imprecision and uncertainty. The application we consider in order to illustrate the interest of our Multiple Classifier System is pedestrian detection in high-density crowds, which is ideally suited for its difficulty, cost of labeling and intrinsic imprecision of annotation data. We show that the fusion resulting from the effective modeling of uncertainty allows for performance improvement, and at the same time, for a deeper interpretation of the result in terms of commitment of the decision

An evidential framework for pedestrian detection in high-density crowds

International audienceThis paper addresses the problem of pedestrian detection in high-density crowd images, characterized by strong homogeneity and clutter. We propose an evidential fusion algorithm which is able to exploit multiple detectors based on different gradient, texture and orientation descriptors. The evidential framework allows us to model the spatial im-precision arising from each of the detectors. A first result of our study is that the fusion results underline clearly the good complementarity among the four descriptors we considered for this specific context. Moreover, the proposed algorithm outperforms a fusion solution based on Multiple Kernel Learning on difficult high-density crowd images acquired at Makkah at the height of the Muslim pilgrimage