Design Space Exploration of Semantic Segmentation CNN SalsaNext for Constrained Architectures

The growing use of LiDAR systems and constrained computing resources in the automotive sector require efficient LiDAR processing. SalsaNext, a convolutional neural network for semantic segmentation, is a promising candidate for deployment in that area. To extend the research regarding its quantization and investigate its adaptability to constrained resources, a design space exploration is performed. The design space, defined by model size, topology, and compute precision, is evaluated on a Jetson AGX Orin regarding classification accuracy, latency, and energy efficiency. The results display a trade-off between classification accuracy and runtime. The smallest model evaluated in INT8 on the GPU provides the smallest latency of 14.48 ms with a mloU score of 43.2%. A mloU score of 47.7% at a latency of 26.92 ms can be achieved with the medium-sized model and modified topology evaluated in INT8 on the DLA. The medium-sized model with modified topology provides good classification accuracy evaluated in FP32 on the GPU with a mloU score of 55.2% in 67.85 ms.