Supervised binary image classification using machine learning and convolutional neural networks

Abstract

Machine Learning and Deep Learning Algorithms were investigated in terms of their ability to perform a supervised binary image classification task involving the Kaggle Dogs vs Cats dataset. Machine Learning algorithms struggled to achieve above 60% training accuracy. Though the CNNs tended to overfit, the inclusion of regularisation via dropouts reduced this effect and the optimal deep learning algorithm developed using Convolutional Neural Networks achieved a training accuracy of 96% and a validation accuracy using unlabelled images of 94%. In a straight comparison the optimal CNN model had an AUC of 94% compared to 51% for kNN and 58% for Naive Bayes when tested using unseen data.