Accelerating Convolutional Neural Network

Tinoosh Mohsenin, CSEE
Tahmid Abtahi, CSEE

We explore the use of deep neural networks (DNN) for embedded big data applications. Deep neural networks have been demonstrated to outperform state-of-the-art solutions for a variety of complex classification tasks, such as image recognition. The ability to train networks to both perform feature abstraction and classification provides a number of key benefits. One key benefit is that it reduces the burden of the developer to produce efficient, optimal feature engineering, which typically requires expert domain-knowledge and significant time. A second key benefit is that the network’s complexity can be adjusted to achieve desired accuracy performance. Despite these benefits, DNNs have yet to be fully realized in an embedded setting. In this research, we explore novel architecture optimizations and develop optimal static mappings for neural networks onto highly parallel, highly granular hardware processors such as many-cores and embedded GPUs.