Online Continual Learning in Edge-Cloud Applications

Overview & Synopsis

Deployed machine learning models in real-world IoT and edge/cloud systems face a critical reliability bottleneck: the requirement for online adaptation to non-stationary data streams while operating without access to the full original training dataset. Performance is severely degraded when models encounter Out-of-Distribution (OOD) inputs or suffer from catastrophic forgetting. Addressing these challenges requires adaptation mechanisms capable of learning from evolving data streams while preserving previously acquired knowledge. This paper proposes an edge-cloud methodology for integrating Continual Learning (CL) with Out-of-Distribution (OOD) Detection and Concept Drift Detection in IoT applications. The methodology incorporates ODIN and ECDD as alternative mechanisms for identifying informative samples for annotation and triggering rehearsal-based model updates. Experimental results across automotive, healthcare, and agricultural datasets demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology and its potential to support model adaptation while mitigating catastrophic forgetting.