Nitin Priyadarshini Shankar

Nitin Priyadarshini Shankar, Soham Lahiri, Sheetal Kalyani et al.

Federated Learning (FL) preserves privacy by distributing training across devices. However, using DNNs is computationally intensive at the low-powered edge during inference. Edge deployment demands models that simultaneously optimize memory footprint and computational efficiency, a dilemma where conventional DNNs fail by exceeding resource limits. Traditional post-training binarization reduces model size but suffers from severe accuracy loss due to quantization errors. To address these challenges, we propose FedBNN, a rotation-aware binary neural network framework that learns binary representations directly during local training. By encoding each weight as a single bit $\{+1, -1\}$ instead of a $32$-bit float, FedBNN shrinks the model footprint, significantly reducing runtime (during inference) FLOPs and memory requirements in comparison to federated methods using real models. Evaluations across multiple benchmark datasets demonstrate that FedBNN significantly reduces resource consumption while performing similarly to existing federated methods using real-valued models.

Deepsayan Sadhukhan, Nitin Priyadarshini Shankar, Sheetal Kalyani

We propose a minimal power white box adversarial attack for Deep Learning based Automatic Modulation Classification (AMC). The proposed attack uses the Golden Ratio Search (GRS) method to find powerful attacks with minimal power. We evaluate the efficacy of the proposed method by comparing it with existing adversarial attack approaches. Additionally, we test the robustness of the proposed attack against various state-of-the-art architectures, including defense mechanisms such as adversarial training, binarization, and ensemble methods. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed attack is powerful, requires minimal power, and can be generated in less time, significantly challenging the resilience of current AMC methods.

Nitin Priyadarshini Shankar, Vaibhav Singh, Sheetal Kalyani et al.

We introduce BERTO, a BERT-based framework for traffic prediction and energy optimization in cellular networks. Built on transformer architectures, BERTO delivers high prediction accuracy, while its Balancing Loss Function and prompt-based customization allow operators to adjust the trade-off between power savings and performance. Natural language prompts guide the model to manage underprediction and overprediction in accordance with the operator's intent. Experiments on real-world datasets show that BERTO improves upon existing models with a $4.13$\% reduction in MSE while introducing the feature of balancing competing objectives of power saving and performance through simple natural language inputs, operating over a flexible range of $1.4$ kW in power and up to $9\times$ variation in service quality, making it well suited for intelligent RAN deployments.

Deepsayan Sadhukhan, Nitin Priyadarshini Shankar, Nancy Nayak et al.

Recently, deep neural networks (DNNs) have been used extensively for automatic modulation classification (AMC), and the results have been quite promising. However, DNNs have high memory and computation requirements making them impractical for edge networks where the devices are resource-constrained. They are also vulnerable to adversarial attacks, which is a significant security concern. This work proposes a rotated binary large ResNet (RBLResNet) for AMC that can be deployed at the edge network because of low memory and computational complexity. The performance gap between the RBLResNet and existing architectures with floating-point weights and activations can be closed by two proposed ensemble methods: (i) multilevel classification (MC), and (ii) bagging multiple RBLResNets while retaining low memory and computational power. The MC method achieves an accuracy of $93.39\%$ at $10$dB over all the $24$ modulation classes of the Deepsig dataset. This performance is comparable to state-of-the-art (SOTA) performances, with $4.75$ times lower memory and $1214$ times lower computation. Furthermore, RBLResNet also has high adversarial robustness compared to existing DNN models. The proposed MC method with RBLResNets has an adversarial accuracy of $87.25\%$ over a wide range of SNRs, surpassing the robustness of all existing SOTA methods to the best of our knowledge. Properties such as low memory, low computation, and the highest adversarial robustness make it a better choice for robust AMC in low-power edge devices.