HydraCIL: Decoupled Class-Incremental Learning through Prototype-Guided Multi-Head Classifiers
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Computer Science > Machine Learning
Title:HydraCIL: Decoupled Class-Incremental Learning through Prototype-Guided Multi-Head Classifiers
Abstract:We present HydraCIL, a decoupled continual learning model based on prototype-guided multi-head classifiers, targeting sustainable deployment in embedded and resource-constrained environments. While most Class-Incremental Learning (CIL) methods rely on powerful hardware and long retraining cycles, real-world systems, such as robots or edge AI devices, must adapt quickly with limited resources. HydraCIL addresses this gap by freezing the backbone and decoupling feature extraction from learning. For each task, features are extracted once and a lightweight, task-specific classifier head is created, avoiding costly backbone retraining. At inference, HydraCIL selects the appropriate head via similarity with prototypes. Experiments on CIFAR-100, ImageNet-100, CoRe50, and Flowers102 datasets show that HydraCIL matches or outperforms state-of-the-art CIL methods while significantly reducing training time and carbon footprint, making it a practical solution for continual learning in real-world and embedded settings, where energy efficiency and rapid adaptation are critical.
| Comments: | Accepted for publication at the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN 2026) |
| Subjects: | Machine Learning (cs.LG); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) |
| Cite as: | arXiv:2606.09960 [cs.LG] |
| (or arXiv:2606.09960v1 [cs.LG] for this version) | |
| https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.09960
arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)
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