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TinyML: Ultra-low power machine learning

370 pointsby Gedxxover 1 year ago

19 comments

cooootceover 1 year ago
I had the opportunity to work on TinyML, it&#x27;s a wonderful field! You can do a lot even with very small hardware.<p>For example, it&#x27;s possible to get real-time computer vision system with an esp32-s3 (dual-core XTensa LX7 @ 240 MHz cost like 2$), of course using the methods given in the article (Pruning, Quantization, Knowledge distillation, etc.). The more important thing is to craft the model to fit as much as possible your need.<p>More than that, it&#x27;s not that hard to get into, with solution named AutoML that do a lot for you. Checkout tool like Edge impulse [0], NanoEdge AI Studio [1], eIQ® ML [2]<p>There is a lot of tooling that is more low-level too, like model compiler (TVM or glow) and Tensorflow Lite Micro [3].<p>It&#x27;s very likely that TinyML will get a lot more of traction. A lot of hardware companies are starting to provide MCU with NPU to keep consumption as low as possible. Company like NXP with the MCX N94x, Alif semiconductor [4], etc.<p>At my work we have done an article with a lot of information, it&#x27;s in French but you can check it out: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rtone.fr&#x2F;blog&#x2F;ia-embarquee&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rtone.fr&#x2F;blog&#x2F;ia-embarquee&#x2F;</a><p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edgeimpulse.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edgeimpulse.com&#x2F;</a><p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stm32ai.st.com&#x2F;nanoedge-ai&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stm32ai.st.com&#x2F;nanoedge-ai&#x2F;</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nxp.com&#x2F;design&#x2F;design-center&#x2F;software&#x2F;eiq-ml-development-environment:EIQ" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nxp.com&#x2F;design&#x2F;design-center&#x2F;software&#x2F;eiq-ml-dev...</a><p>[3]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tensorflow.org&#x2F;lite&#x2F;microcontrollers" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tensorflow.org&#x2F;lite&#x2F;microcontrollers</a><p>[4]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;alifsemi.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;alifsemi.com&#x2F;</a>
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furtimanover 1 year ago
Another take from us at Edge Impulse at explaining TinyML &#x2F; Edge ML in our docs: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.edgeimpulse.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;concepts&#x2F;what-is-embedded-machine-learning-anyway" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.edgeimpulse.com&#x2F;docs&#x2F;concepts&#x2F;what-is-embedded-...</a><p>We have built a platform to build ML models and deploy it to edge devices from cortex M3s to Nvidia Jetsons to your computer (we can even run in WASM!)<p>You can create an account and build a keyword spotting model from your phone and run in WASM directly <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edgeimpulse.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edgeimpulse.com</a><p>Now another key thing that drives the Edge ML adoption is the arrival of the embedded accelerator ASICs &#x2F; NPUs &#x2F; e.g. that dramatically speed up computation with extremely low power - e.g. the Brainchip Akida neuromorphic co-processors [1]<p>Depending on the target device the runtime that Edge Impulse supports anything from conventional TFLite to NVIDIA TensorRT, Brainchip Akida, Renesas DRP-AI, MemryX, Texas Instruments TIDL (ONNX &#x2F; TFLite), TensaiFlow, EON (Edge Impulse own runtime), etc.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;brainchip.com&#x2F;neuromorphic-chip-maker-takes-aim-at-the-edge&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;brainchip.com&#x2F;neuromorphic-chip-maker-takes-aim-at-t...</a><p>[Edit]: added runtimes &#x2F; accelerators
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matteocarnelosover 1 year ago
I built a Rust TinyML compiler for my master thesis project: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;matteocarnelos&#x2F;microflow-rs">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;matteocarnelos&#x2F;microflow-rs</a><p>It uses Rust procedural macros to evaluate the model at compile time and create a predict() function that performs inference on the given model. By doing so, I was able to strip down the binary way more than TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers and other engines. I even managed to run a speech command recognizer (TinyConv) on an 8-bit ATmega328 (Arduino Uno).
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winridover 1 year ago
I imagine a future where viruses that target infrastructure could be LLM powered. Sneak a small device into a power plant&#x27;s network and it collects audio, network traffic, etc and tries to break things. It would periodically reset and try again with a different &quot;seed&quot;. It could be hidden in network equipment through social engineering during the sales process, for example, but this way no outbound traffic is needed - so less detectable.<p>The advantage of an LLM over other solutions would basically be a way to compress an action&#x2F;knowledge set.
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dansituover 1 year ago
It&#x27;s great to see TinyML at the top of Hacker News, even if this is not the best resource (unsure how it got so many upvotes)!<p>TinyML means running machine learning on low power embedded devices, like microcontrollers, with constrained compute and memory. I was supremely lucky in being around for the birth of this stuff: I helped launch TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers at Google back in 2019, co-authored the O&#x27;Reilly book TinyML (with Pete Warden, who deserves credit more than anyone for making this scene happen) and, ran the initial TinyML meetups at the Google and Qualcomm campuses.<p>You likely have a TinyML system in your pocket right now: every cellphone has a low power DSP chip running a deep learning model for keyword spotting, so you can say &quot;Hey Google&quot; or &quot;Hey Siri&quot; and have it wake up on-demand without draining your battery. It’s an increasingly pervasive technology.<p>TinyML is a subset of edge AI, which includes any type of device sitting at the edge of a network. This has grown far beyond the general purpose microcontrollers we were hacking on in the early days: there are now a ton of highly capable devices designed specifically for low power deep learning inference.<p>It’s astonishing what is possible today: real time computer vision on microcontrollers, on-device speech transcription, denoising and upscaling of digital signals. Generative AI is happening, too, assuming you can find a way to squeeze your models down to size. We are an unsexy field compared to our hype-fueled neighbors, but the entire world is already filling up with this stuff and it’s only the very beginning. Edge AI is being rapidly deployed in a ton of fields: medical sensing, wearables, manufacturing, supply chain, health and safety, wildlife conservation, sports, energy, built environment—we see new applications every day.<p>This is an unbelievably fascinating area: it’s truly end-to-end, covering an entire landscape from processor design to deep learning architectures, training, and hardware product development. There are a ton of unsolved problems in academic research, practical engineering, and the design of products that make use of these capabilities.<p>I’ve worked in many different parts of tech industry and this one feels closest to capturing the feeling I’ve read about in books about the early days of hacking with personal computers. It’s fast growing, tons of really hard problems to solve, even more low hanging fruit, and has applications in almost every space.<p>If you’re interested in getting involved, you can choose your own adventure: learn the basics and start building products, or dive deep and get involved with research. Here are some resources:<p>* Harvard TinyML course: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.edx.org&#x2F;learn&#x2F;machine-learning&#x2F;harvard-universit" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.edx.org&#x2F;learn&#x2F;machine-learning&#x2F;harvard-universit</a>...<p>* Coursera intro to embedded ML: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.coursera.org&#x2F;learn&#x2F;introduction-to-embedded-mach" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.coursera.org&#x2F;learn&#x2F;introduction-to-embedded-mach</a>...<p>* TinyML (my original book, on the absolute basics. getting a bit out of date, contact me if you wanna help update it): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tinymlbook.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tinymlbook.com</a><p>* AI at the Edge (my second book, focused on workflows for building real products): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;AI-Edge-Real-World-Problems-Embedded&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;AI-Edge-Real-World-Problems-Embedded&#x2F;</a>...<p>* ML systems with TinyML (wiki book by my friend Prof. Vijay Reddi at Harvard): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;harvard-edge.github.io&#x2F;cs249r_book&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;harvard-edge.github.io&#x2F;cs249r_book&#x2F;</a><p>* TinyML conference: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tinyml.org&#x2F;event&#x2F;summit-2024&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tinyml.org&#x2F;event&#x2F;summit-2024&#x2F;</a><p>* I also write a newsletter about this stuff, and the implications it has for human computer interaction: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dansitu.substack.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dansitu.substack.com</a><p>I left Google 4 years ago to lead the ML team at Edge Impulse (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;edgeimpulse.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;edgeimpulse.com</a>) — we have a whole platform that makes it easy to develop products with edge AI. Drop me an email if you are building a product or looking for work: daniel@edgeimpulse.com
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bitwranglerover 1 year ago
A recent Hacker Box has a detailed example with ESP32 and Tensor Flow Lite and Edge Impulse.<p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackerboxes.com&#x2F;products&#x2F;hackerbox-0095-ai-camera" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackerboxes.com&#x2F;products&#x2F;hackerbox-0095-ai-camera</a><p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.instructables.com&#x2F;HackerBox-0095-AI-Camera-Lab&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.instructables.com&#x2F;HackerBox-0095-AI-Camera-Lab&#x2F;</a>
andy99over 1 year ago
I&#x27;m really surprised TF lite is being used. Do they train models or is this (my assumption) just inference? Do they have a talent constraint? I would have expected handwritten C inference in order to make these as small and efficient as possible.
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jairuhmeover 1 year ago
I find the field of TinyML very interesting. It&#x27;s one thing to be able to throw money and compute resources at a problem to get better results. But creating solutions that have those constraints I feel will really leave an impact
synergy20over 1 year ago
TinyML is like IoT: great on concepts, everyone agrees it&#x27;s the future, but has been slow to take off.<p>or, maybe it&#x27;s just that they&#x27;re being built into all products now, they just do not need the brand for them such as IoT or TinyML.
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_joelover 1 year ago
For those looking for some more content, there&#x27;s a bunch of videos from their Asia 2023 conference. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tinyml.org&#x2F;event&#x2F;asia-2023&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tinyml.org&#x2F;event&#x2F;asia-2023&#x2F;</a><p>- Target Classification on the Edge using mmWave Radar: A Novel Algorithm and Its Real-Time Implementation on TI’s IWRL6432 (Muhammet Emin YANIK) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=SNNhUT_V8vM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=SNNhUT_V8vM</a>
andy_pppover 1 year ago
This article has made me ponder if like integrated circuits, AI will end up everywhere. Will I be having conversations with my fridge about the recipes I should make (based on her contents) and the meaning of life. What a time it is to be alive…
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a2codeover 1 year ago
This may be related to TinyML. Consider the ESP32 that introduced WiFi to MCU making it extremely popular. Is there already a comparable MCU+AI popular chip? Or will it not happen with AI but some other future technology concept?
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iamflimflam1over 1 year ago
I played around quite a bit with Tensorflow Lite in the ESP32 - mostly for things like wake word detection and simple commands - works very well and you can get pretty much real time performance with small models.
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neutralino1over 1 year ago
A lot of ads on this page.
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coolThingsFirstover 1 year ago
Uses of TinyML in industry:<p>Uhm.... well... hehe
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robblbobblover 1 year ago
Great job, thank you!
bhakunikaranover 1 year ago
truly impressive.
orliesaurusover 1 year ago
Cool title - but what&#x27;s&#x2F;where&#x27;s a demo showing how this is applied in the real world?
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IlliOnatoover 1 year ago
I wish they&#x27;d use a different acronym, not ML: For me xxxML usually meant a flavor of XML, with ML standing for Markup Language...<p>Is this use of ML standard in the industry?