Deployment
After training and validating your model, you can now deploy it to any device. This makes the model run without an internet connection, minimizes latency, and runs with minimal power consumption.
The Deployment page consists of a variety of deployment options to choose from depending on your target device. Regardless of whether you are using a fully supported development board or not, you can deploy your impulse to any device. The C++ library and Edge Impulse SDK enable the model to run without an internet connection on the device, minimize latency, and with minimal power consumption.
There are 5 main deployment options currently supported by Edge Impulse:
- 1.Deploy as a customizable library
- 2.Deploy as a pre-built firmware - for fully supported development boards
- 3.Run directly on your phone or computer
- 4.Use Edge Impulse for Linux for Linux targets
- 5.
From the Deployment page, select the Search deployment options search box to select and configure a deployment option:
Selected deployment option
These deployment options let you turn your impulse into a fully optimized source code that can be further customized and integrated with your application. The customizable library packages all of your signal processing blocks, configuration and machine learning blocks into a single package with all available source code. Edge Impulse supports the following libraries (depending on your dataset's sensor type):
- Ethos-U library
- Meta TF model
- Simplicity Studio Component
- Tensai Flow library
- TensorRT library
- TIDL-RT library
Search deployment options
For these deployment options, you can use a ready-to-go binary for your development board that bundles signal processing blocks, configuration and machine learning blocks into a single package. This option is available for fully supported development boards.
Pre-built firmware for fully supported development boards.
To deploy your model using ready-to-go binaries, select your target device and click "build". Flash the downloaded firmware to your device then run the following command:
edge-impulse-run-impulse
The impulse runner shows the results of your impulse running on your development board. This only applies to ready-to-go binaries built from the studio.
If your training and testing datasets include a sensor data type that is not supported by a deployment target, the search box will include these greyed out with a Not supported label:
Deployment option not supported for sensor data type.
If you are developing for Linux-based devices, you can use Edge Impulse for Linux for deployment. It contains tools that let you collect data from any microphone or camera, can be used with the Node.js, Python, Go and C++ SDKs to collect new data from any sensor, and can run impulses with full hardware acceleration - with easy integration points to write your own applications.
For a deep dive into deploying your impulse to Linux targets using Edge Impulse for Linux, you can visit the Edge Impulse for Linux tutorial.
Deploying using Edge Impulse for Linux SDKs
You can run your impulse directly on your computer/mobile phone without the need of an additional app. To run on your computer, click Launch in browser. To run on your mobile phone, scan the QR code and click Switch to classification mode.
Deploying to your mobile phone or computer
Download the most recent build from your project's deployment page under Latest build:
Download the latest build.
When building your impulse for deployment, Edge Impulse gives you the option of adding another layer of optimization to your impulse using the EON compiler. The EON Compiler lets you run neural networks in 25-55% less RAM, and up to 35% less flash, while retaining the same accuracy, compared to TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers.
To activate the EON Compiler, select your preferred deployment option then go to Enable EON™ Compiler then enable it and click 'Build' to build your impulse for deployment. You can also select whether to run the unquantized float32 or the quantized int8 models. To compare model accuracy, run model testing in your project by clicking Run model testing.
Enabling EON Compiler
To have a peek at how your impulse would utilize compute resources of your target device, Edge Impulse also gives an estimate of latency, flash, and RAM to be consumed by your target device even before deploying your impulse locally. This can save you a lot of engineering time, and costs incurred by recurring iterations and experiments.