A Continuous Encoding-Based Representation for Efficient Multi-Fidelity Multi-Objective Neural Architecture Search

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Wei, Zhao, Ooi, Chin Chun, Ong, Yew-Soon
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Wei, Zhao
Ooi, Chin Chun
Ong, Yew-Soon
author_facet Wei, Zhao
Ooi, Chin Chun
Ong, Yew-Soon
contents Neural architecture search (NAS) is an attractive approach to automate the design of optimized architectures but is constrained by high computational budget, especially when optimizing for multiple, important conflicting objectives. To address this, an adaptive Co-Kriging-assisted multi-fidelity multi-objective NAS algorithm is proposed to further reduce the computational cost of NAS by incorporating a clustering-based local multi-fidelity infill sampling strategy, enabling efficient exploration of the search space for faster convergence. This algorithm is further accelerated by the use of a novel continuous encoding method to represent the connections of nodes in each cell within a generalized cell-based U-Net backbone, thereby decreasing the search dimension (number of variables). Results indicate that the proposed NAS algorithm outperforms previously published state-of-the-art methods under limited computational budget on three numerical benchmarks, a 2D Darcy flow regression problem and a CHASE_DB1 biomedical image segmentation problem. The proposed method is subsequently used to create a wind velocity regression model with application in urban modelling, with the found model able to achieve good prediction with less computational complexity. Further analysis revealed that the NAS algorithm independently identified principles undergirding superior U-Net architectures in other literature, such as the importance of allowing each cell to incorporate information from prior cells.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_01943
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Continuous Encoding-Based Representation for Efficient Multi-Fidelity Multi-Objective Neural Architecture Search
Wei, Zhao
Ooi, Chin Chun
Ong, Yew-Soon
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Neural architecture search (NAS) is an attractive approach to automate the design of optimized architectures but is constrained by high computational budget, especially when optimizing for multiple, important conflicting objectives. To address this, an adaptive Co-Kriging-assisted multi-fidelity multi-objective NAS algorithm is proposed to further reduce the computational cost of NAS by incorporating a clustering-based local multi-fidelity infill sampling strategy, enabling efficient exploration of the search space for faster convergence. This algorithm is further accelerated by the use of a novel continuous encoding method to represent the connections of nodes in each cell within a generalized cell-based U-Net backbone, thereby decreasing the search dimension (number of variables). Results indicate that the proposed NAS algorithm outperforms previously published state-of-the-art methods under limited computational budget on three numerical benchmarks, a 2D Darcy flow regression problem and a CHASE_DB1 biomedical image segmentation problem. The proposed method is subsequently used to create a wind velocity regression model with application in urban modelling, with the found model able to achieve good prediction with less computational complexity. Further analysis revealed that the NAS algorithm independently identified principles undergirding superior U-Net architectures in other literature, such as the importance of allowing each cell to incorporate information from prior cells.
title A Continuous Encoding-Based Representation for Efficient Multi-Fidelity Multi-Objective Neural Architecture Search
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.01943