Deploying deep neural networks (DNNs) on IoT and mobile devices is a
challenging task due to their limited computational resources. Thus, demanding
tasks are often entirely offloaded to edge servers which can accelerate
inference, however, it also causes communication cost and evokes privacy
concerns. In addition, this approach leaves the computational capacity of end
devices unused. Split computing is a paradigm where a DNN is split into two
sections; the first section is executed on the end device, and the output is
transmitted to the edge server where the final section is executed. Here, we
introduce dynamic split computing, where the optimal split location is
dynamically selected based on the state of the communication channel. By using
natural bottlenecks that already exist in modern DNN architectures, dynamic
split computing avoids retraining and hyperparameter optimization, and does not
have any negative impact on the final accuracy of DNNs. Through extensive
experiments, we show that dynamic split computing achieves faster inference in
edge computing environments where the data rate and server load vary over time.

本研究提出了一种基于动态选择拆分位置的动态拆分计算模型，通过利用现代深度神经网络结构中已有的瓶颈，避免了重新训练和超参数优化，并没有对深度神经网络的最终准确性产生任何负面影响。大量实验证明，动态拆分计算模型在边缘计算环境中可以实现更快的推理。