EKAResNet: Enhancing ResNet with Kolmogorov–Arnold Network-Based Nonlinear Feature Mapping

Residual Networks (ResNet) address the vanishing gradient problem through skip connections and have become a fundamental architecture for computer vision tasks. However, standard convolutional layers exhibit limited capacity in modeling complex nonlinear relationships. We present EKAResNet, a residual backbone enhanced with a spline-based Kolmogorov–Arnold Network (KAN) head. Specifically, we introduce a KAN-based Feature Classification Module (KAN-FCM) that replaces a portion of the traditional fully connected classifier. This module employs piecewise polynomial (spline) approximation to achieve adaptive nonlinear mapping while maintaining a controlled parameter budget. We evaluate EKAResNet on CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100, achieving top accuracies of 95.84% and 80.06%, respectively. Importantly, the model maintains a parameter count comparable to strong ResNet and WideResNet baselines. Ablation studies on spline configurations further confirm the contribution of the KAN head. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of integrating KAN structures into ResNet for modeling high-dimensional, complex features. Our work highlights a promising direction for designing deep learning architectures that balance accuracy and computational efficiency.