Electrical and Computer Engineering PhD Dissertation Defense:
Real-Time, Privacy-Centric, Embedded Affect Monitoring with Wearable Sensors
Timothy Sweeney-Fanelli, PhD Candidate
Abstract: Automated Emotion Recognition is the process of programmatically identifying and classifying affective responses to stimuli. Prior work in AER has shown that physiological responses, including electrodermal activity and heart rate, are useful predictors of emotion. The sensors necessary to monitor these signals are widely used in commercial health and fitness wearables, and deep learning models have used them to achieve greater than 98% classification accuracy but rely on high-end GPU architectures and laboratory-grade sensors. New generations of ultra-low power microcontrollers equipped with hardware-accelerated AI/ML instruction sets introduce the possibility of on-wearable automated emotion recognition, processing physiological signals in real-time, with applications in personal health and wellness, human-computer interaction, cognitive readiness in critical situations, and interpersonal relationships. Prior work in automated emotion recognition has not yet explored applications outside of controlled laboratory environments and has only explored larger and more complex models for higher accuracy AER in research settings.
This research explores the current state of AER and demonstrates the novel application of temporal convolutional neural networks to address the research gap in real-time embedded affect monitoring.
BIO: Tim is a PhD Candidate in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. His research interests are in automated emotion recognition, embedded systems, and wearable sensor design. He earned his M.S. in Electrical Engineering and B.S. in Software Engineering, both from Clarkson University in 2002 and 2004, respectively. He is the founder of Zero Byte, LLC, where he provides consultation services for public and private sector clients in software, IT, and embedded systems architecture and design. He is also the co-founder of Affects AI, LLC, where he focuses on R&D using embedded machine learning applications for real-time affect monitoring.
PhD Dissertation Committee:
Dr. Masudul Imtiaz (Research Advisor)
Dr. Mahesh Banavar
Dr. Stephanie Schuckers
Dr. Daqing Hou
Dr. Sean Banerjee
Monday, April 21, 2025, 1:00-3:00 pm, ZOOM
Join Link: https://clarkson.zoom.us/j/94413021456?pwd=odYjZdLlKAJuMayN5nHvBFc4CpqRsa.1