How to know if a real-time classifier is achivable in a low-power emdedded system?

Question

Say I have an Machine/Deep learning algorithm I developed on a desktop pc to achieve a real-time classification of time series events from a sensor. Once the algorithm is trained and performs good, I want to implement it on an low power embbeded system, with the same sensor, to classify events in real-time:

• How can I know if the low power embedded system is fast enough to allow real-time classification regarding the algorithm (knowing it in advance would avoid to implement and try multiple architectures) ?
• Machine/Deep learning algorithm are usually developed in python. Is there easy ways to transfer the code from python to a more embeddable langage ?

Answer 1

Regarding your first point, it depends on what neural network you would like to use, the sensor temporal resolution, and the capabilities of the embedded system. You can figure out the number of operations required for a forward pass of your network, then when combined with the internal clock of the embedded system, you can calculate the approximate time it would take for one classification event in real time.

A good explanation is given here What is the computational complexity of the forward pass of a convolutional neural network?

If you have the computational complexity of your network, and the number of CPU cycles per seconds, you can roughly approximate the time.