A New Siamese Network Loss for Cattle Facial Recognition in a Few-Shot Learning Scenario

This study explores the use of a Siamese neural network architecture to enhance classification performance in few-shot learning scenarios, with a focus on bovine facial recognition. Traditional methodologies often require large datasets, which can significantly stress animals during data collection. In contrast, the proposed method aims to reduce the number of images needed, thereby minimizing animal stress. Systematic experiments conducted on datasets representing both full and few-shot learning scenarios revealed that the Siamese network consistently outperforms traditional models, such as ResNet101. It achieved notable improvements, with mean values increasing by over 6.5% and standard deviations decreasing by at least 0.010 compared to the ResNet101 baseline. These results highlight the Siamese network’s robustness and consistency, even in resource-constrained environments, and suggest that it offers a promising solution for enhancing model performance with fewer data and reduced animal stress, despite its slower training speed.