English

CoopNet: Cooperative Convolutional Neural Network for Low-Power MCUs

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 2020-01-28 v3 Machine Learning Image and Video Processing

Abstract

Fixed-point quantization and binarization are two reduction methods adopted to deploy Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) on end-nodes powered by low-power micro-controller units (MCUs). While most of the existing works use them as stand-alone optimizations, this work aims at demonstrating there is margin for a joint cooperation that leads to inferential engines with lower latency and higher accuracy. Called CoopNet, the proposed heterogeneous model is conceived, implemented and tested on off-the-shelf MCUs with small on-chip memory and few computational resources. Experimental results conducted on three different CNNs using as test-bench the low-power RISC core of the Cortex-M family by ARM validate the CoopNet proposal by showing substantial improvements w.r.t. designs where quantization and binarization are applied separately.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1911.08606,
  title  = {CoopNet: Cooperative Convolutional Neural Network for Low-Power MCUs},
  author = {Luca Mocerino and Andrea Calimera},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1911.08606},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T12:21:38.014Z