MCUBench: A Benchmark of Tiny Object Detectors on MCUs

Abstract

We introduce MCUBench , a benchmark featuring over 100 YOLO-based object detection models evaluated on the VOC dataset across seven different MCUs. This benchmark provides detailed data on average precision, latency, RAM, and Flash usage for various input resolutions and YOLO-based one-stage detectors. By conducting a controlled comparison with a fixed training pipeline, we collect comprehensive performance metrics. Our Pareto-optimal analysis shows that integrating modern detection heads and training techniques allows various YOLO architectures, including older models like YOLOv3, to achieve an excellent mean Average Precision (mAP)-latency tradeoff. MCUBench serves as a valuable tool for benchmarking the MCU performance of contemporary object detectors and aids in model selection based on specific constraints. Code and data are available at  github.com/Deeplite/deeplite-torch-zoo .