---
license: apache-2.0
language: en
tags:
  - audio
  - bird
  - bioacoustics
  - wildlife
  - tflite
  - quantized
  - int8
  - float16
  - raspberry-pi
  - edge-ai
  - perch
library_name: tflite
pipeline_tag: audio-classification
datasets:
  - google/bird-vocalization-classifier
base_model: google/bird-vocalization-classifier
---

# Perch V2 — Optimized TFLite Models for Raspberry Pi

Optimized variants of Google's [Perch V2](https://www.kaggle.com/models/google/bird-vocalization-classifier) bird vocalization classifier for **edge deployment on Raspberry Pi and ARM64 devices**.

Three model variants converted directly from the **official Google SavedModel**, each targeting a different performance/quality trade-off.

## Models

| Model | Size | Inference (RPi 5) | Embedding cosine | Top-1 agree | Top-5 agree | Best for |
|-------|------|-------------------|-----------------|-------------|-------------|----------|
| `perch_v2_original.tflite` | 409 MB | 435 ms | baseline | baseline | baseline | Reference / high-RAM devices |
| `perch_v2_fp16.tflite` | 205 MB | 384 ms | 0.9999 | 100% | 99% | **RPi 5 (recommended)** |
| `perch_v2_dynint8.tflite` | 105 MB | 299 ms | 0.9927 | 93% | 90% | **RPi 4 / low-RAM devices** |

> Benchmarked on Raspberry Pi 5 Model B (8GB, Cortex-A76 @ 2.4GHz), 20 real bird recordings from 20 species, 5 runs each, 4 threads.

## Quick Start

### Choose your model

- **RPi 5 (4-8 GB):** Use `perch_v2_fp16.tflite` — near-perfect accuracy, 2x smaller than original
- **RPi 4 (2-4 GB):** Use `perch_v2_dynint8.tflite` — 4x smaller, 31% faster, very good accuracy
- **Desktop / reference:** Use `perch_v2_original.tflite` — exact Google baseline

### Usage

```python
# Works with ai-edge-litert, tflite-runtime, or tensorflow
from ai_edge_litert.interpreter import Interpreter
import numpy as np

model_path = "perch_v2_fp16.tflite"  # or dynint8, or original
interpreter = Interpreter(model_path=model_path, num_threads=4)
interpreter.allocate_tensors()

inp = interpreter.get_input_details()
out = interpreter.get_output_details()

# Input: 5 seconds of audio at 32 kHz
audio = np.zeros((1, 160000), dtype=np.float32)  # replace with real audio
interpreter.set_tensor(inp[0]["index"], audio)
interpreter.invoke()

# Get species logits (14,795 classes)
logits = interpreter.get_tensor(out[3]["index"])[0]
top_species = np.argsort(logits)[-5:][::-1]
```

### Download a single model

```python
from huggingface_hub import hf_hub_download

# Download only the model you need
model_path = hf_hub_download(
    "ernensbjorn/perch-v2-int8-tflite",
    "perch_v2_fp16.tflite"
)
```

## Model Details

### Architecture

- **Backbone:** EfficientNet-B3 (~12M params for embeddings)
- **Classification head:** ~91M params (~101.8M total)
- **Input:** 5.0 seconds @ 32,000 Hz = 160,000 float32 samples
- **Outputs:**
  - Index 0: Spatial embeddings (16 x 4 x 1536)
  - Index 1: Temporal features
  - Index 2: 1536-dim global embedding
  - Index 3: **14,795 species logits** (use this for classification)

### Species Coverage

~10,340 bird species + frogs, insects, mammals (~14,795 total classes).

Use the included `labels.txt` for class names and `bird_indices.json` to filter bird-only species.

### Quantization Methods

| Variant | Method | What's quantized | File size reduction |
|---------|--------|-----------------|-------------------|
| **original** | None (float32 baseline) | Nothing | 1x |
| **fp16** | TFLite float16 quantization | Weights stored as float16, dequantized at runtime | 2x smaller |
| **dynint8** | TFLite dynamic range quantization | Weights quantized to int8, activations remain float32 | 4x smaller |

All variants were converted directly from the [official Google Perch V2 SavedModel](https://www.kaggle.com/models/google/bird-vocalization-classifier/tensorFlow2/perch_v2) using `tf.lite.TFLiteConverter` with appropriate optimization flags. No binary patching or post-hoc manipulation.

## Detailed Benchmarks

### Raspberry Pi 5 (8 GB, Cortex-A76 @ 2.4 GHz, 4 threads)

| Model | Size | p50 latency | p95 latency | Embedding cosine (mean) | Embedding cosine (min) | Top-1 | Top-5 |
|-------|------|------------|------------|------------------------|----------------------|-------|-------|
| original | 409 MB | 435 ms | 534 ms | baseline | baseline | baseline | baseline |
| fp16 | 205 MB | 384 ms | 477 ms | 0.999994 | 0.999991 | 100% | 99% |
| dynint8 | 105 MB | 299 ms | 405 ms | 0.992748 | 0.972732 | 93% | 90% |

- **Embedding cosine:** Cosine similarity of the 1536-dim embedding vector vs the float32 baseline. Values > 0.99 indicate negligible quality loss for downstream tasks.
- **Top-1/Top-5 agreement:** How often the quantized model's top predicted species matches the original's prediction.
- Test data: 20 real field recordings from 20 species (Rougegorge familier, Courlis cendré, Grive mauvis, Sarcelle d'hiver, Râle d'eau, etc.)

### Raspberry Pi 4 Estimates

The RPi 4 (Cortex-A72 @ 1.8 GHz) is roughly 2-3x slower than the RPi 5. Expected latencies:

| Model | Estimated p50 | RAM needed |
|-------|---------------|------------|
| original | ~1000-1300 ms | ~500 MB |
| fp16 | ~900-1150 ms | ~300 MB |
| **dynint8** | **~700-900 ms** | **~150 MB** |

For RPi 4 with 2 GB RAM, `dynint8` is strongly recommended.

## Origin

Converted from the official [Google Perch V2 SavedModel](https://www.kaggle.com/models/google/bird-vocalization-classifier/tensorFlow2/perch_v2) (hosted by Google researcher [cgeorgiaw on HuggingFace](https://huggingface.co/cgeorgiaw/Perch)).

Created as part of the [Birdash](https://github.com/ernens/birdash) project — an open-source bird detection dashboard and engine for Raspberry Pi.

## License

Apache 2.0 (same as the original Perch V2 model by Google)

## Citation

If you use these models, please cite the original Perch V2 work:

```bibtex
@article{ghani2023global,
  title={Global birdsong embeddings enable superior transfer learning for bioacoustic classification},
  author={Ghani, Burooj and Denton, Tom and Kahl, Stefan and Klinck, Holger},
  journal={Scientific Reports},
  year={2023}
}
```