Improving the generalization of gait recognition with limited datasets

TL;DR

This paper presents a unified approach to improve gait recognition across diverse datasets by refining training data and stabilizing supervision, leading to better generalization without extra annotations.

Contribution

It introduces a method that enhances data quality and supervision stability in mixed-dataset gait learning, improving cross-domain robustness without changing network architectures.

Findings

Improved cross-domain gait recognition performance on multiple datasets.

Enhanced data efficiency by filtering redundant gait sequences.

Stabilized training through disentangled metric learning across datasets.

Abstract

Generalized gait recognition remains challenging due to significant domain shifts in viewpoints, appearances, and environments. Mixed-dataset training has recently become a practical route to improve cross-domain robustness, but it introduces underexplored issues: 1) inter-dataset supervision conflicts, which distract identity learning, and 2) redundant or noisy samples, which reduce data efficiency and may reinforce dataset-specific patterns. To address these challenges, we introduce a unified paradigm for cross-dataset gait learning that simultaneously improves motion-signal quality and supervision consistency. We first increase the reliability of training data by suppressing sequences dominated by redundant gait cycles or unstable silhouettes, guided by representation redundancy and prediction uncertainty. This refinement concentrates learning on informative gait dynamics when mixing heterogeneous datasets. In parallel, we stabilize supervision by disentangling metric learning across datasets, forming triplets within each source to prevent destructive cross-domain gradients while preserving transferable identity cues. These components act in synergy to stabilize optimization and strengthen generalization without modifying network architectures or requiring extra annotations. Experiments on CASIA-B, OU-MVLP, Gait3D, and GREW with both GaitBase and DeepGaitV2 backbones consistently show improved cross-domain performance without sacrificing in-domain accuracy. These results demonstrate that data selection and aligning supervision effectively enables scalable mixed-dataset gait learning.