FORGE: Forward-Only Test-Time Adaptation for Integer-Only Vision Models on Microcontrollers
Mirrored from arXiv — Machine Learning for archival readability. Support the source by reading on the original site.
Computer Science > Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
arXiv:2609.01683 (cs)
[Submitted on 1 Sep 2026]
Title:FORGE: Forward-Only Test-Time Adaptation for Integer-Only Vision Models on Microcontrollers
View a PDF of the paper titled FORGE: Forward-Only Test-Time Adaptation for Integer-Only Vision Models on Microcontrollers, by Muhammad Rehan and 3 other authors
View PDF
HTML (experimental)
Abstract:Vision models deployed on microcontrollers (MCUs) are quantized to integer-only arithmetic and run in inference-only runtimes that do not carry the machinery backpropagation needs: the standard tool for adapting a model to the distribution shift (sensor noise, blur, lighting) it meets in the field. Existing forward-only test-time adaptation (TTA) methods either run only on server- or edge-GPU-class models (not true microcontroller integer execution), or require the batch-normalization (BN) layers that integer deployment fuses away. We present a forward-only TTA method that operates on deployed, BN-folded, integer-only convolutional networks. The key observation is that fusing BN into the preceding convolution, a mandatory step for integer inference, destroys the statistics that normalization-based adaptation relies on. We restore adaptation by re-normalizing each folded convolution's per-channel output to its clean training statistics, using only forward-pass estimates. The method (i) recovers most of gradient-based TENT's accuracy gain (+20.9 vs. +24.9 points) and matches forward-only BN adaptation, while being the only method that runs on a folded integer-only model; (ii) needs to adapt only 3 of 21 layers (selected without seeing the test corruptions) to recover 93% of the benefit; (iii) survives single-sample streaming with a batch-size-scaled momentum; and (iv) generalizes across three datasets (up to 200 classes) and two architectures. We validate bit-exact int8 convolution execution and deploy on an ESP32-S3, where, measured with a Nordic PPK2 power profiler, the forward-only adaptation (a lightweight fp32 recalibration around the int8 convolutions) costs only 8.3 mJ (6.8% of inference energy) and 21.9 ms on the deployed SIMD-optimized model: forward-only adaptation is cheap on a real microcontroller.
| Comments: | 16 pages, 5 figures, 9 tables. Published in Transactions on Machine Learning Research (2026). OpenReview: this https URL. Code and checkpoints: this https URL |
| Subjects: | Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV); Hardware Architecture (cs.AR); Machine Learning (cs.LG) |
| ACM classes: | I.2.6; I.5.4; C.3 |
| Cite as: | arXiv:2609.01683 [cs.CV] |
| (or arXiv:2609.01683v1 [cs.CV] for this version) | |
| https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.01683
arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)
|
|
| Journal reference: | Transactions on Machine Learning Research, 2026 |
Full-text links:
Access Paper:
- View PDF
- HTML (experimental)
- TeX Source
View a PDF of the paper titled FORGE: Forward-Only Test-Time Adaptation for Integer-Only Vision Models on Microcontrollers, by Muhammad Rehan and 3 other authors
Current browse context:
cs.CV
References & Citations
Loading...
Bookmark
Bibliographic Tools
Code, Data, Media
Demos
Related Papers
About arXivLabs
Bibliographic and Citation Tools
Bibliographic Explorer Toggle
Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?)
Connected Papers Toggle
Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?)
Litmaps Toggle
Litmaps (What is Litmaps?)
scite.ai Toggle
scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?)
Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article
alphaXiv Toggle
alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?)
Links to Code Toggle
CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?)
DagsHub Toggle
DagsHub (What is DagsHub?)
GotitPub Toggle
Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?)
Huggingface Toggle
Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?)
ScienceCast Toggle
ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?)
Demos
Replicate Toggle
Replicate (What is Replicate?)
Spaces Toggle
Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?)
Spaces Toggle
TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?)
Recommenders and Search Tools
Link to Influence Flower
Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?)
Core recommender toggle
CORE Recommender (What is CORE?)
arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators
arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.
Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.
Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.
More from arXiv — Machine Learning
-
Algebraic Integer Quantization for Machine Learning Applications
Oct 12
-
CircuitTree: Composing Circuits into A Syllable Transcriber
Oct 12
-
Behind-the-Meter Photovoltaic Visibility from Net Smart Meters: Deployment Regimes and Operational Insights
Oct 12
-
GlucoPRISM: Protocol-Supervised Pretraining for Cross-Cohort Glucose Transfer
Oct 12
Discussion (0)
Sign in to join the discussion. Free account, 30 seconds — email code or GitHub.
Sign in →No comments yet. Sign in and be the first to say something.