# YOLO Nano: a Highly Compact You Only Look Once Convolutional Neural Network for Object Detection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.01271 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.01271/

## Key facts

- Cited by 16 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 3 Oct 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 16 of 16)

- [Annealing Knowledge Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.07163/) (2021)
- [YOLO-ReT: Towards High Accuracy Real-time Object Detection on Edge GPUs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.13713/) (2021)
- [Automatic autism spectrum disorder detection using artificial intelligence methods with MRI neuroimaging: A review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.11233/) (2022)
- [EPTQ: Enhanced Post-Training Quantization via Hessian-guided Network-wise Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.11531/) (2023)
- [Uncertainty-Aware Autonomous Vehicles: Predicting the Road Ahead](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.22680/) (2025)
- [VFM-Det: Towards High-Performance Vehicle Detection via Large Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.13031/) (2024)
- [MicroFlow: An Efficient Rust-Based Inference Engine for TinyML](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.19432/) (2024)
- [Rethinking Pareto Frontier for Performance Evaluation of Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.09275/) (2022)
- [CellDefectNet: A Machine-designed Attention Condenser Network for Electroluminescence-based Photovoltaic Cell Defect Inspection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.11766/) (2022)
- [microYOLO: Towards Single-Shot Object Detection on Microcontrollers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.15865/) (2024)
- [Person Detection Using an Ultra Low-resolution Thermal Imager on a Low-cost MCU](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08415/) (2022)
- [Improved knowledge distillation by utilizing backward pass knowledge in neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.12006/) (2023)
- [A Method for the Runtime Validation of AI-based Environment Perception in Automated Driving System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.16762/) (2024)
- [BlankSkip: Early-exit Object Detection onboard Nano-drones](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.28149/) (2026)
- [Biological Sex Determination in Cadavers Using Deep Learning Algorithms from Computed Tomography Images of Pelvis and Skull](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.22515/) (2026)
- [Low-Power License Plate Detection and Recognition on a RISC-V Multi-Core MCU-Based Vision System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.09768/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Object detection remains an active area of research in the field of computer vision, and considerable advances and successes has been achieved in this area through the design of deep convolutional neural networks for tackling object detection. Despite these successes, one of the biggest challenges to widespread deployment of such object detection networks on edge and mobile scenarios is the high computational and memory requirements. As such, there has been growing research interest in the design of efficient deep neural network architectures catered for edge and mobile usage. In this study, we introduce YOLO Nano, a highly compact deep convolutional neural network for the task of object detection. A human-machine collaborative design strategy is leveraged to create YOLO Nano, where principled network design prototyping, based on design principles from the YOLO family of single-shot object detection network architectures, is coupled with machine-driven design exploration to create a compact network with highly customized module-level macroarchitecture and microarchitecture designs tailored for the task of embedded object detection. The proposed YOLO Nano possesses a model size of ~4.0MB (>15.1x and >8.3x smaller than Tiny YOLOv2 and Tiny YOLOv3, respectively) and requires 4.57B operations for inference (>34% and ~17% lower than Tiny YOLOv2 and Tiny YOLOv3, respectively) while still achieving an mAP of ~69.1% on the VOC 2007 dataset (~12% and ~10.7% higher than Tiny YOLOv2 and Tiny YOLOv3, respectively). Experiments on inference speed and power efficiency on a Jetson AGX Xavier embedded module at different power budgets further demonstrate the efficacy of YOLO Nano for embedded scenarios.