Runtime Adaptivity for Efficient Neural Network Inference on Autonomous Systems

Neural network pruning and dynamic training have emerged as key techniques for optimizing deep learning models to meet the constraints of resource-limited systems. However, achieving both efficiency and adaptability without compromising safety or performance remains a significant challenge in real-time autonomous applications. We present Back to the Future and USA-Nets , two complementary approaches that address this challenge. Back to the Future combines pruning with dynamic routing to enable latency gains and dynamic reconfiguration at runtime, allowing a pruned model to seamlessly revert to the full model when unsafe or anomalous behavior is detected. USA-Nets extend this concept by enabling runtime adaptability through dynamically trained networks that can adjust their width without requiring additional annotated data or excessive storage overhead. Together, these methods deliver significant performance improvements while maintaining safety and flexibility, as evidenced by experimental results demonstrating that Back to the Future achieves a 32× faster reversion time compared to loading the full model, and USA-Nets achieve up to 85% latency reduction with minimal accuracy degradation. These innovations pave the way for efficient, adaptable, and safe deployment of deep learning models in diverse real-time and resource-constrained environments, with future work focusing on advanced pruning techniques and runtime optimizations.