AI サービスが一時的に利用できないため、復旧後に翻訳を補完します。
[Submitted on 18 Sep 2026] Title:HeadGuard: Selective Head Protection for Low-Bit VLM KV-Cache Quantization View a PDF of the paper titled HeadGuard: Selective Head Protection for Low-Bit VLM KV-Cache Quantization, by Nenad Banfic View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Low-bit key-value (KV) cache quantization saves storage but can sharply degrade vision-language model (VLM) accuracy. We introduce HeadGuard, a composable head-protection method that augments a base KV-cache quantizer with a fixed high-precision mask. Image-sensitivity and output-sensitivity scores select physical KV heads offline, with approximately 1/8 protected in the main experiments; their image keys and optionally values remain in bfloat16 (BF16), while the base quantizes unprotected image entries. Across eight VLMs, three base quantizers, and eight benchmarks (six discriminative and two generative), HeadGuard recovers a substantial fraction of lost accuracy on weaker quantizers, with the strongest gains for Qwen and InternVL. At 2 bits, the six-task discriminative mean over eight models rises from 0.436 to 0.580 on the weakest base; protection can also improve generated answers and caption fidelity to BF16 outputs. Mean accuracy gains persist across all three quantizers with both tested calibration datasets. Keys-only protection retains substantial recovery at lower modeled storage cost. Evaluated through simulated quantization, HeadGuard offers a composable way to improve low-bit VLM accuracy without replacing the underlying quantizer. Subjects: Machine Learning (cs.LG); Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV) Cite as: arXiv:2609.35800 [cs.LG] (or arXiv:2609.35800v1 [cs.LG] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.35800 arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Nenad Banfic [view email] [v1] Fri, 18 Sep 2026 01:14:32 UTC (341 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled HeadGuard: Selective Head Protection for Low-Bit VLM KV-Cache Quantization, by Nenad Banfic View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Ancillary-file links: Ancillary files (details): MANIFEST.json README.md bootstrap_intervals.py build_archive.py calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/mmbench/Hkv.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/mmbench/Hq.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/mmbench/L.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/mmbench/g.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/mmbench/g_kv.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/mmbench/hyb_kv.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/mmbench/qA.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/mmbench/qA_kv.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/mmbench/qS.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/mmbench/qS_kv.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/mmbench/qf.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/mmbench/qf_kv.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/mmbench/qfi.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/mmbench/qm.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/mmbench/qm_kv.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/pope/Hkv.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/pope/Hq.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/pope/L.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/pope/g.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/pope/g_kv.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/pope/hyb_kv.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/pope/qA.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/pope/qA_kv.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/pope/qS.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/pope/qS_kv.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/pope/qf.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/pope/qf_kv.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/pope/qfi.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/pope/qm.npy calibration/budget_sweep/bits_2-3-4/pope/qm_kv.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_2/pope/Hkv.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_2/pope/Hq.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_2/pope/L.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_2/pope/g.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_2/pope/g_kv.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_2/pope/hyb_kv.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_2/pope/qA.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_2/pope/qA_kv.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_2/pope/qS.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_2/pope/qS_kv.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_2/pope/qf.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_2/pope/qf_kv.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_2/pope/qfi.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_2/pope/qm.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_2/pope/qm_kv.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_3/pope/Hkv.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_3/pope/Hq.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_3/pope/L.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_3/pope/g.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_3/pope/g_kv.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_3/pope/hyb_kv.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_3/pope/qA.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_3/pope/qA_kv.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_3/pope/qS.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_3/pope/qS_kv.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_3/pope/qf.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_3/pope/qf_kv.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_3/pope/qfi.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_3/pope/qm.npy calibration/full_kv/bits_3/pope/qm_kv.npy calibration/keys_only/bits_2/pope/Hkv.npy calibration/keys_only/bits_2/pope/Hq.npy calibration/keys_only/bits_2/pope/L.npy calibration/keys_only/bits_2/pope/g.npy calibration/keys_only/bits_2/pope/g_kv.npy calibration/keys_only/bits_2/pope/hyb_kv.npy calibration/keys_only/bits_2/pope/qA.npy calibration/keys_only/bits_2/pope/qA_kv.npy calibration/keys_only/bits_2/pope/qS.npy calibration/keys_only/bits_2/pope/qS_kv.npy calibration/keys_only/bits_2/pope/qf.npy calibration/keys_only/bits_2/pope/qf_kv.npy calibration/keys_only/bits_2/pope/qfi.npy calibration/keys_only/bits_2/pope/qm.npy calibration/keys_only/bits_2/pope/qm_kv.npy compare_calibration.py evaluate.py experiments.json memory_estimates.py plot_budget.py reference/budget_sweep_mmbench.json reference/budget_sweep_pope.json reference/confidence_intervals.json reference/full_kv.json reference/keys_only.json render_capped_tables.py requirements-analysis.txt requirements.txt results_io.py run_budget_sweep.py run_full_kv.py run_grid.py run_keys_only.py summarize_results.py test_calibration_comparison.py test_numerics.py test_release.py (96 additional files not shown) Current browse context: cs.LG new | recent | 2026-09 Change to browse by: cs cs.CV References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Loading... 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