Pairwise Neural Networks (PairNets) with Low Memory for Fast On-Device Applications

Abstract: A traditional artificial neural network (ANN) is normally trained slowly by a gradient descent algorithm, such as the backpropagation algorithm, since a large number of hyperparameters of the ANN need to be fine-tuned with many training epochs. Since a large number of hyperparameters of a deep neural network, such as a convolutional neural network, occupy much memory, a memory-inefficient deep learning model is not ideal for real-time Internet of Things (IoT) applications on various devices, such as mobile phones. Thus, it is necessary to develop fast and memory-efficient Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) systems for real-time on-device applications. We created a novel wide and shallow 4-layer ANN called "Pairwise Neural Network" ("PairNet") with high-speed non-gradient-descent hyperparameter optimization. The PairNet is trained quickly with only one epoch since its hyperparameters are directly optimized one-time via simply solving a system of linear equations by using the multivariate least squares fitting method. In addition, an n-input space is partitioned into many n-input data subspaces, and a local PairNet is built in a local n-input subspace. This divide-and-conquer approach can train the local PairNet using specific local features to improve model performance. Simulation results indicate that the three PairNets with incremental learning have smaller average prediction mean squared errors, and achieve much higher speeds than traditional ANNs. An important future work is to develop better and faster non-gradient-descent hyperparameter optimization algorithms to generate effective, fast, and memory-efficient PairNets with incremental learning on optimal subspaces for real-time AIoT on-device applications.