# Dynamic DNNs and Runtime Management for Efficient Inference on Mobile/Embedded Devices

Source: [Dynamic DNNs and Runtime Management for Efficient Inference on Mobile/Embedded Devices](<https://www.sota2.com/research/paper/68fa71df1e209131cea5378e>)

Collection index: [llms.txt](<https://www.sota2.com/research/llms.txt>)

Data updated: 2025-10-26T02:14:27.865Z

Authors: Lei Xun, Jonathon Hare, Geoff V. Merrett

Published: 2024-01-17T04:40:30.000Z

## Abstract

Deep neural network (DNN) inference is increasingly being executed on mobile and embedded platforms due to several key advantages in latency, privacy and always-on availability. However, due to limited computing resources, efficient DNN deployment on mobile and embedded platforms is challenging. Although many hardware accelerators and static model compression methods were proposed by previous works, at system runtime, multiple applications are typically executed concurrently and compete for hardware resources. This raises two main challenges: Runtime Hardware Availability and Runtime Application Variability. Previous works have addressed these challenges through either dynamic neural networks that contain sub-networks with different performance trade-offs or runtime hardware resource management. In this thesis, we proposed a combined method, a system was developed for DNN performance trade-off management, combining the runtime trade-off opportunities in both algorithms and hardware to meet dynamically changing application performance targets and hardware constraints in real time. We co-designed novel Dynamic Super-Networks to maximise runtime system-level performance and energy efficiency on heterogeneous hardware platforms. Compared with SOTA, our experimental results using ImageNet on the GPU of Jetson Xavier NX show our model is 2.4x faster for similar ImageNet Top-1 accuracy, or 5.1% higher accuracy at similar latency. We also designed a hierarchical runtime resource manager that tunes both dynamic neural networks and DVFS at runtime. Compared with the Linux DVFS governor schedutil, our runtime approach achieves up to a 19% energy reduction and a 9% latency reduction in single model deployment scenario, and an 89% energy reduction and a 23% latency reduction in a two concurrent model deployment scenario.

## Recorded benchmark results

A research result applies to its stated dataset, split, metric and evaluation configuration. Compare like-for-like settings, preserve the metric's unit and direction, and distinguish paper-reported results from independent reproduction. The best result recorded here is not a claim of exhaustive, current global coverage.

## Original sources and implementation

[Original paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.08965>)

[PDF](<https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.08965.pdf>)
