Software-based performance and complexity analysis for the design of embedded classification systems

Embedded microcontrollers are employed in an increasing number of applications as a target for the implementation of classification systems. This is true for example for the fields of sports, automotive and medical engineering. However, important challenges arise when implementing classification systems on embedded microcontrollers, which is mainly due to limited hardware resources. In this paper, we present a solution to the two main challenges, namely obtaining a classification system with low computational complexity and at the same time high classification accuracy. For the first challenge, we propose complexity measures on the mathematical operation and parameter level, because the abstraction level of the commonly used Landau notation is too high in the context of embedded system implementation. For the second challenge, we present a software toolbox that trains different classification systems, compares their classification rate, and finally analyzes the complexity of the trained system. To give an impression of the importance of such complexity measures when dealing with limited hardware resources, we present the example analysis of the popular Pima Indians Diabetes data set, where considerable complexity differences between classification systems were revealed.