Run MobileSAM prompt segmentation on Arm Ethos-U85 with ExecuTorch
Introduction
Understand the MobileSAM deployment workflow
Prepare the ExecuTorch and Arm environment
Export MobileSAM for Ethos-U85
Build and run MobileSAM on the Corstone-320 FVP
Validate the MobileSAM segmentation result
Next Steps

  Log an issue

  Fork and edit

  Discuss on Discord

Build ExecuTorch for Arm

Run the remaining commands from the ExecuTorch repository root.

Load the Arm tools installed during environment setup:

    

        
        
source examples/arm/arm-scratch/setup_path.sh

Configure and install the bare-metal ExecuTorch libraries:

    

        
        
cmake --preset arm-baremetal \
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
  -B cmake-out-arm
cmake --build cmake-out-arm --target install --parallel

The installed libraries provide the ExecuTorch runtime, Ethos-U backend, and kernels needed by the example application.

Build the MobileSAM application

Configure the application with the Arm GNU bare-metal toolchain:

    

        
        
cmake \
  -S examples/arm/mobilesam_prompt_segmentation_example_ethos_u/runtime \
  -B arm_test/mobilesam_manual/runtime \
  -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE="$PWD/examples/arm/ethos-u-setup/arm-none-eabi-gcc.cmake" \
  -DET_BUILD_DIR_PATH="$PWD/cmake-out-arm" \
  -DET_PTE_FILE_PATH="$PWD/arm_test/mobilesam_manual/export/mobilesam_point_ethos_u85_448.pte" \
  -DMODEL_METADATA_PATH="$PWD/arm_test/mobilesam_manual/export/mobilesam_point_ethos_u85_448.json" \
  -DIMAGE_PATH="$PWD/examples/models/dinov2/dog.jpg" \
  -DMASK_THRESHOLD=0.0 \
  -DET_SEGMENTATION_DUMP_MASK=ON \
  -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE="$(command -v python)"

The configuration embeds the .pte and image in the bare-metal application. Mask output is enabled for later visualization.

Build the application Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) file:

    

        
        
cmake --build arm_test/mobilesam_manual/runtime \
  --target mobilesam_prompt_segmentation_example --parallel

The build writes arm_test/mobilesam_manual/runtime/mobilesam_prompt_segmentation_example.

Run the application on the FVP

Enable pipeline failure reporting, then run the ELF on the Corstone-320 Fixed Virtual Platform (FVP):

    

        
        
set -o pipefail

backends/arm/scripts/run_fvp.sh \
  --elf=arm_test/mobilesam_manual/runtime/mobilesam_prompt_segmentation_example \
  --target=ethos-u85-256 \
  --timeout=300 \
  --semihosting-cwd=arm_test/mobilesam_manual/runtime \
  --fast 2>&1 | tee arm_test/mobilesam_manual/fvp.log

A successful run ends with Model executed successfully., followed by No problems found!. The run writes the complete target output to arm_test/mobilesam_manual/fvp.log.

What you’ve accomplished and what’s next

You’ve built the MobileSAM bare-metal application and run it on a virtual Cortex-M85 and Ethos-U85 system.

Next, you’ll reconstruct the target mask and compare it with the host result.

Back
Next