Wei Li
Publications
When Smaller Wins: Dual-Stage Distillation and Pareto-Guided Compression of Liquid Neural Networks for Edge Battery Prognostics
Battery management systems increasingly require accurate battery health prognostics under strict on-device constraints. This paper presents DLNet, a practical framework with dual-stage distillation of liquid neural networks that turns a high-capacity model into compact and edge-deployable models for battery health prediction. DLNet first applies Euler discretization to reformulate liquid dynamics for embedded compatibility. It then performs dual-stage knowledge distillation to transfer the teacher model's temporal behavior and recover it after further compression. Pareto-guided selection under joint error-cost objectives retains student models that balance accuracy and efficiency. We evaluate DLNet on a widely used dataset and validate real-device feasibility on an Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense using int8 deployment. The final deployed student achieves a low error of 0.0066 when predicting battery health over the next 100 cycles, which is 15.4% lower than the teacher model. It reduces the model size from 616 kB to 94 kB with 84.7% reduction and takes 21 ms per inference on the device. These results support a practical smaller wins observation that a small model can match or exceed a large teacher for edge-based prognostics with proper supervision and selection. Beyond batteries, the DLNet framework can extend to other industrial analytics tasks with strict hardware constraints.
EntroLnn: Entropy-Guided Liquid Neural Networks for Operando Refinement of Battery Capacity Fade Trajectories
Battery capacity degradation prediction has long been a central topic in battery health analytics, and most studies focus on state of health (SoH) estimation and end of life (EoL) prediction. This study extends the scope to online refinement of the entire capacity fade trajectory (CFT) through EntroLnn, a framework based on entropy-guided transformable liquid neural networks (LNNs). EntroLnn treats CFT refinement as an integrated process rather than two independent tasks for pointwise SoH and EoL. We introduce entropy-based features derived from online temperature fields, applied for the first time in battery analytics, and combine them with customized LNNs that model temporal battery dynamics effectively. The framework enhances both static and dynamic adaptability of LNNs and achieves robust and generalizable CFT refinement across different batteries and operating conditions. The approach provides a high fidelity battery health model with lightweight computation, achieving mean absolute errors of only 0.004577 for CFT and 18 cycles for EoL prediction. This work establishes a foundation for entropy-informed learning in battery analytics and enables self-adaptive, lightweight, and interpretable battery health prediction in practical battery management systems.