Pruning-Based TinyML Optimization of Machine Learning Models for Anomaly Detection in Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure

With the growing need for real-time processing on IoT devices, optimizing machine learning (ML) models' size, latency, and computational efficiency is essential. This paper investigates a pruning method for anomaly detection in resourceconstrained environments, specifically targeting Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure (EVCI). Using the CICEVSE2024 dataset, we trained and optimized three models—Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), and XGBoost—through hyperparameter tuning with Optuna, further refining them using SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP)-based feature selection (FS) and unstructured pruning techniques. The optimized models achieved significant reductions in model size and inference times, with only a marginal impact on their performance. Notably, our findings indicate that, in the context of EVCI, pruning and FS can enhance computational efficiency while retaining critical anomaly detection capabilities.