Beyond Knowledge Distillation: Collaborative Learning for Bidirectional Model Assistance

Knowledge distillation (KD) is a powerful technique that enables a well-trained large model to assist a small model. However, KD is constrained in a teacher-student manner. Thus, this method may not be appropriate in general situations, where the learning abilities of two models are uncertain or not...

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Main Authors: Jinzhuo Wang, Wenmin Wang, Wen Gao
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2018-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8409945/
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author Jinzhuo Wang
Wenmin Wang
Wen Gao
author_facet Jinzhuo Wang
Wenmin Wang
Wen Gao
author_sort Jinzhuo Wang
collection DOAJ
description Knowledge distillation (KD) is a powerful technique that enables a well-trained large model to assist a small model. However, KD is constrained in a teacher-student manner. Thus, this method may not be appropriate in general situations, where the learning abilities of two models are uncertain or not significantly different. In this paper, we propose a collaborative learning (CL) method, which is a flexible strategy to achieve bidirectional model assistance for two models using a mutual knowledge base (MKB). The MKB is used to collect mutual information and provide assistance, and it is updated along with the learning process of the two models and separately deployed when converged. We show that CL can be applied to any two deep neural networks and is easily extended to multiple networks. Compared with the teacher-student framework, CL can achieve bidirectional assistance and does not impose specific requirements on the involved models, such as pretraining and different abilities. The experimental results demonstrate that CL can efficiently improve the learning ability and convergence speed of the two models, with superior performance to a series of relevant methods, such as ensemble learning and a series of KD-based methods. More importantly, we show that the state-of-the-art models, such as DenseNet, can be greatly improved using CL along with other popular models.
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spelling doaj.art-ce65c4bcb7c4471d88566211a4b7b2122022-12-21T20:30:25ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362018-01-016394903950010.1109/ACCESS.2018.28549188409945Beyond Knowledge Distillation: Collaborative Learning for Bidirectional Model AssistanceJinzhuo Wang0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9464-4426Wenmin Wang1Wen Gao2School of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Peking University, Shenzhen, ChinaSchool of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Peking University, Shenzhen, ChinaSchool of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Peking University, Beijing, ChinaKnowledge distillation (KD) is a powerful technique that enables a well-trained large model to assist a small model. However, KD is constrained in a teacher-student manner. Thus, this method may not be appropriate in general situations, where the learning abilities of two models are uncertain or not significantly different. In this paper, we propose a collaborative learning (CL) method, which is a flexible strategy to achieve bidirectional model assistance for two models using a mutual knowledge base (MKB). The MKB is used to collect mutual information and provide assistance, and it is updated along with the learning process of the two models and separately deployed when converged. We show that CL can be applied to any two deep neural networks and is easily extended to multiple networks. Compared with the teacher-student framework, CL can achieve bidirectional assistance and does not impose specific requirements on the involved models, such as pretraining and different abilities. The experimental results demonstrate that CL can efficiently improve the learning ability and convergence speed of the two models, with superior performance to a series of relevant methods, such as ensemble learning and a series of KD-based methods. More importantly, we show that the state-of-the-art models, such as DenseNet, can be greatly improved using CL along with other popular models.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8409945/Bidirectional model assistancecollaborative learningdeep neural networksmutual knowledge base
spellingShingle Jinzhuo Wang
Wenmin Wang
Wen Gao
Beyond Knowledge Distillation: Collaborative Learning for Bidirectional Model Assistance
IEEE Access
Bidirectional model assistance
collaborative learning
deep neural networks
mutual knowledge base
title Beyond Knowledge Distillation: Collaborative Learning for Bidirectional Model Assistance
title_full Beyond Knowledge Distillation: Collaborative Learning for Bidirectional Model Assistance
title_fullStr Beyond Knowledge Distillation: Collaborative Learning for Bidirectional Model Assistance
title_full_unstemmed Beyond Knowledge Distillation: Collaborative Learning for Bidirectional Model Assistance
title_short Beyond Knowledge Distillation: Collaborative Learning for Bidirectional Model Assistance
title_sort beyond knowledge distillation collaborative learning for bidirectional model assistance
topic Bidirectional model assistance
collaborative learning
deep neural networks
mutual knowledge base
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8409945/
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AT wenminwang beyondknowledgedistillationcollaborativelearningforbidirectionalmodelassistance
AT wengao beyondknowledgedistillationcollaborativelearningforbidirectionalmodelassistance