ADC-RANet: Improving Resolution Adaptive Neural Networks with Attention, Distillation and Calibration

Jeferson Severino de Araujo, Lilian Hollard, Eric Granger, Marco Pedersoli

Dynamic neural networks are a class of adaptive models in which the computation assigned to each input sample is determined dynamically, potentially reducing computational cost while maintaining similar performance. For image classification, the Resolution Adaptive Network (RANet) is a strong approach that progressively allocates computational resources across input scales based on sample difficulty. In this work, we introduce RANet with Attention, Distillation and Calibration (ADC-RANet), an enhanced version of RANet that improves performance across all computational budgets. Our approach combines three tightly connected components: bottom-up channel attention, top-down cascaded knowledge distillation, and overconfidence correction using MixUp, in a synergistic design that coordinates both pathways. Experiments on CIFAR-100 and ImageNet datasets show consistent gains while preserving the efficiency of RANet. Our code is available: https://github.com/jefersonseverino/ADC-RANet