Real-time facial emotion recognition model based on kernel autoencoder and convolutional neural network for autism children

Abstract

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by abnormalities in the brain, leading to difficulties in social interaction and communication, as well as learning and attention. Early diagnosis of ASD is challenging as it mainly relies on detecting abnormalities in brain function, which may not be evident in the early stages of the disorder. Facial expression analysis has shown promise as an alternative and efficient solution for early diagnosis of ASD, as children with ASD often exhibit distinctive patterns that differentiate them from typically developing children. Assistive technology has emerged as a crucial tool in improving the quality of life for individuals with ASD. In this study, we developed a real-time emotion identification system to detect the emotions of autistic children in case of pain or anger. The emotion recognition system consists of three stages: face identification, facial feature extraction, and feature categorization. The proposed system can detect six facial emotions: anger, fear, joy, natural, sadness, and surprise. To achieve high-performance accuracy in classifying the input image efficiently, we proposed a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) architecture for facial expression recognition. An autoencoder was used for feature extraction and feature selection, and a pre-trained model (ResNet, MobileNet, and Xception) was applied due to the size of the dataset. The Xception model achieved the highest performance, with an accuracy of 0.9523%, sensitivity of 0.932, specificity of 0.9421, and AUC of 0.9134%. The proposed emotion detection framework leverages fog and IoT technologies to reduce latency for real-time detection with fast response and location awareness. Using fog computing is particularly useful when dealing with big data. Our study demonstrates the potential of using facial expression analysis and deep learning algorithms for real-time emotion recognition in autistic children, providing medical experts and families with a valuable tool for improving the quality of life for individuals with ASD.