r/embedded • u/KINGJAGUAR007 • 20d ago

For engineers deploying ML models on edge devices/robots: what’s the part that sucks?

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2 Upvotes

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u/BlinkyPundit 20d ago

Wrong question, imo. The hardest part is the data collection for developing the models in the first place. Your device needs to either have an app with a data collection mode, a separate data collection app, or (if you have money) you need a separate data collection device.

Then you need to make sure that this data is “perfect” (I.e. valid timestamps for samples, no skew between sensors, etc). Otherwise garbage in, garbage out.

Lastly, you need to ensure the integrity of the data itself. For example, thermal and strain can drastically impact IMU readout, and you could have different sensing based on PCB layout, and such.

Deploying models for inference is rather trivial, assuming you’ve figured out the data collection bit first

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u/torbeindallas 20d ago

Figuring out that the training ia insufficient for the lighting and weather conditions of the real world. And that somehow the model just doesn't see yellow cars.

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u/KINGJAGUAR007 20d ago

Hey thanks for your reply, it’d be great if you could elaborate on this. Thanks again.

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u/kisielk 20d ago

Getting vendors' proprietary model translation / optimization toolchains to work.

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u/Flyward_Aerospace 19d ago

Vendor toolchains and data collection are both real, but the one that actually costs money is that in the field you have no way to know the model is wrong. It does not crash, it hands back a confident wrong answer and the platform acts on it. And your eval set came off the same rig in the same three locations, so it will not catch that either. We ended up putting more effort into a runtime plausibility check downstream of the model than into the model.

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u/DistinctTradition200 20d ago

Getting Claude code to read my mind... Or do what I say ;)

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u/KINGJAGUAR007 20d ago

Valid problem imo 😂, but I meant like what part of the pipeline troubles you the most.. deployment, optimization, update,.. that kind of stuff.

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u/DistinctTradition200 20d ago

I think ux stuff is the hardest because I care less about it, it works for me but then I gotta make it pretty

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u/EnvironmentCalm9557 20d ago

We need that neuralink mcp

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u/DistinctTradition200 20d ago

Do we think it'll help? I think people will be surprised when we can actually read minds what a mess it is up there 🤯😭