# VALO: A Versatile Anytime Framework for LiDAR-based Object Detection Deep Neural Networks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.11542 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.11542/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 18 of its 37 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Sep 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 18 of 18)

- [nuScenes: A multimodal dataset for autonomous driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.11027/) (2019)
- [Scalability in Perception for Autonomous Driving: Waymo Open Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04838/) (2019)
- [PointPillars: Fast Encoders for Object Detection from Point Clouds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.05784/) (2018)
- [Center-based 3D Object Detection and Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11275/) (2020)
- [From Points to Parts: 3D Object Detection from Point Cloud with Part-aware and Part-aggregation Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.03670/) (2019)
- [Class-balanced Grouping and Sampling for Point Cloud 3D Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.09492/) (2019)
- [Submanifold Sparse Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.01307/) (2017)
- [VoxelNeXt: Fully Sparse VoxelNet for 3D Object Detection and Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11301/) (2023)
- [Lidar for Autonomous Driving: The principles, challenges, and trends for automotive lidar and perception systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.08467/) (2020)
- [PillarNet: Real-Time and High-Performance Pillar-based 3D Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.07403/) (2022)
- [TorchSparse: Efficient Point Cloud Inference Engine](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.10319/) (2022)
- [Pylot: A Modular Platform for Exploring Latency-Accuracy Tradeoffs in Autonomous Vehicles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.07830/) (2021)
- [Spatial Pruned Sparse Convolution for Efficient 3D Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14201/) (2022)
- [On Offline Evaluation of 3D Object Detection for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.12779/) (2023)
- [Scheduling Real-time Deep Learning Services as Imprecise Computations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.01112/) (2020)
- [Ada3D : Exploiting the Spatial Redundancy with Adaptive Inference for Efficient 3D Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.08209/) (2023)
- [RED: A Systematic Real-Time Scheduling Approach for Robotic Environmental Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.15368/) (2023)
- [Anytime-Lidar: Deadline-aware 3D Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12181/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [You Only Look Once at Anytime (AnytimeYOLO): Analysis and Optimization of Early-Exits for Object-Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.17497/) (2025)
- [CSRAP: Enhanced Canvas Attention Scheduling for Real-Time Mission Critical Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.04976/) (2025)
- [Multi-Resolution End-to-End Deep Neural Network for Optimizing Latency-Accuracy Tradeoff in Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.29138/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This work addresses the challenge of adapting dynamic deadline requirements for LiDAR object detection deep neural networks (DNNs). The computing latency of object detection is critically important to ensure safe and efficient navigation. However, state-of-the-art LiDAR object detection DNNs often exhibit significant latency, hindering their real-time performance on resource-constrained edge platforms. Therefore, a tradeoff between detection accuracy and latency should be dynamically managed at runtime to achieve optimum results. In this paper, we introduce VALO (Versatile Anytime algorithm for LiDAR Object detection), a novel data-centric approach that enables anytime computing of 3D LiDAR object detection DNNs. VALO employs a deadline-aware scheduler to selectively process input regions, making execution time and accuracy tradeoffs without architectural modifications. Additionally, it leverages efficient forecasting of past detection results to mitigate possible loss of accuracy due to partial processing of input. Finally, it utilizes a novel input reduction technique within its detection heads to significantly accelerate execution without sacrificing accuracy. We implement VALO on state-of-the-art 3D LiDAR object detection networks, namely CenterPoint and VoxelNext, and demonstrate its dynamic adaptability to a wide range of time constraints while achieving higher accuracy than the prior state-of-the-art. Code is available athttps://github.com/CSL-KU/VALO}{github.com/CSL-KU/VALO.