arXiv Machine Learning

Exploring the Trade-Off Between Structured Pruning and Fault Tolerance in Deep Neural Networks for Space Applications

The study examines how reducing the width of deep neural networks through structured pruning affects their robustness to Single Event Upsets (SEUs). By iteratively pruning baseline models and conducting fault-injection tests at each stage, the authors find that while pruning increases per-inference sensitivity to bit-flips, the shorter execution time offsets this, lowering the overall SEU probability. Consequently, structured pruning can deliver energy and latency savings without compromising reliability for space-based AI systems.

arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 6

Understanding Fault Tolerance of Adversarially Robust Pruned Models

arXiv:2608. 04173v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Deep neural networks (DNNs) deployed on resource-constrained neuromorphic hardware face three concurrent challenges: the need for model compression through pruning, vulnerability to adversarial input perturbations, and susceptibility to hardware-induced weight faults such as stuck-at-zero errors.

By Manali Dangarikar, Cory Merkel
arXiv AI
Sep 7

TreeFI: Value-Aware Statistical Fault Injection for Deep Neural Networks

TreeFI is a value‑aware statistical fault‑injection technique for FP32 single‑bit faults in deep neural network activations and weights. It partitions each layer’s value distribution into intervals with similar expected bit‑flip behavior using regression trees, then allocates injections across these intervals based on their relevance for failure‑rate estimation. This stratified approach preserves target confidence and error margins while dramatically reducing the required injection budget—up to 72.1× for activations and 11.2× for weights compared to existing baselines.

By Noam Bires, Marcello Traiola, Angeliki Kritikakou, Elisa Fromont
arXiv AI
Jul 7

From Arithmetic to Logic: The Resilience of Logic and Lookup-Based Neural Networks Under Parameter Bit-Flips

arXiv:2603. 22770v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: The deployment of deep neural networks (DNNs) in safety-critical edge environments necessitates robustness against hardware-induced bit-flip errors.

By Alan T. L. Bacellar, Sathvik Chemudupati, Shashank Nag, Allison Seigler, Priscila M. V. Lima, Felipe M. G. Fran\c{c}a, Lizy K. John
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 24

Faults That Fortify: CNN Adversarial Robustness via GPU Undervolting

The paper demonstrates that undervolting GPUs during CNN training introduces stochastic faults that act as implicit regularization, improving adversarial robustness while reducing power consumption. Experiments on LeNet, VGG-6, and MobileNetV3 trained on MNIST and CIFAR-10 show that undervolted models consistently outperform nominal-voltage models in both standard and adversarial training regimes. The approach offers a hardware-level defense that requires no algorithmic changes and yields significant energy savings due to the quadratic relationship between dynamic power and supply voltage.

By Behnam Omidi, Ahmad Tahmasivand, Husam Alsyouri, Saba Al-Sayouri, Chongzhou Fang, Ihsen Alouani, Khaled N. Khasawneh
arXiv Computer Vision
Sep 15

Sparsity-Adaptive Sharpness-Aware Minimization

The paper introduces Sparsity-Adaptive Sharpness-Aware Minimization (SA‑SAM), a method that adjusts the perturbation radius in sharpness-aware training to remain consistent as model sparsity increases. It also evaluates a Magnitude‑Weighted Hessian (MWH) importance metric derived from second‑order analysis. Experiments on CIFAR‑10‑C, CIFAR‑100‑C, and ImageNet‑100‑C show that SA‑SAM improves corruption robustness at 80–90% sparsity while maintaining clean accuracy, and the study reports inference throughput at deployment‑relevant sparsity levels.

By Shiryu Ueno, Yoshikazu Hayashi, Kunihito Kato