1. FastAST: Accelerating Audio Spectrogram Transformer via Token Merging and Cross-Model Knowledge Distillation
- Author
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Behera, Swarup Ranjan, Dhiman, Abhishek, Gowda, Karthik, and Narayani, Aalekhya Satya
- Subjects
Computer Science - Sound ,Computer Science - Artificial Intelligence ,Computer Science - Machine Learning ,Computer Science - Multimedia ,Electrical Engineering and Systems Science - Audio and Speech Processing ,68T10 - Abstract
Audio classification models, particularly the Audio Spectrogram Transformer (AST), play a crucial role in efficient audio analysis. However, optimizing their efficiency without compromising accuracy remains a challenge. In this paper, we introduce FastAST, a framework that integrates Token Merging (ToMe) into the AST framework. FastAST enhances inference speed without requiring extensive retraining by merging similar tokens in audio spectrograms. Furthermore, during training, FastAST brings about significant speed improvements. The experiments indicate that FastAST can increase audio classification throughput with minimal impact on accuracy. To mitigate the accuracy impact, we integrate Cross-Model Knowledge Distillation (CMKD) into the FastAST framework. Integrating ToMe and CMKD into AST results in improved accuracy compared to AST while maintaining faster inference speeds. FastAST represents a step towards real-time, resource-efficient audio analysis., Comment: Accepted to Interspeech 2024
- Published
- 2024