Abstract:This paper presents a new scheme for face recognition, namely face recognition using null-space combined with nearest space distance classifier. By constructing the null-spaces and the subspaces of different types of human face images, different types of human face images are distinguished at the maximum degree. This idea considers that a test image has the shortest distance from its own class-specific subspace and has the farthest distance from its own class-specific null-space. The proposed classifier is evaluated on ORL database and AR database. Experiments on these databases demonstrate that the proposed scheme is more effective than some discriminants used by common classifiers, such as nearest distance used by nearest neighbor classifier, nearest space distance used by nearest space classifier and nearest-farthest subspace distance used by nearest-farthest subspace classifier.