Near-realtime face mask wearing recognition based on deep learning

COVID-19 pandemic has led to serious economic and life losses. Face Masks serve as first infection barrier when used in public spaces. In this paper, we propose a new near-realtime method to automatically recognize face mask wearing that combines human posture recognition with convolutional neural network (CNN). We use the power of human posture recognition to perform background filtering and spatial reduction in the original images. The outcome is then used by a trained CNN model to identify if the subject is wearing a mask. We exploit Openpose to identify the skeleton of human body and locate the facial region thus spatially reducing the area to be processed by the CNN framework. We then adopt supervised learning approach to detect if a face mask is present. The CNN is trained using images, cropped to the supposed face mask covered region. This approach led to a substantial reduction in neural network complexity yet improving the recognition accuracy. The system has been evaluated in a multitude of scenarios using images taken in public places at different time of day and with different angles. Overall, our system achieves a recognition accuracy of 95.8% and 94.6% in daytime and nighttime respectively.