Content area

Abstract

Federated learning (FL) is a promising framework for privacy-preserving collaborative learning, where model training tasks are distributed to clients and only the model updates need to be collected at a server. However, when being deployed at mobile edge networks, clients may have unpredictable availability and drop out of the training process, which hinders the convergence of FL. This paper tackles such a critical challenge. Specifically, we first investigate the convergence of the classical FedAvg algorithm with arbitrary client dropouts. We find that with the common choice of a decaying learning rate, FedAvg oscillates around a stationary point of the global loss function, which is caused by the divergence between the aggregated and desired central update. Motivated by this new observation, we then design a novel training algorithm named MimiC, where the server modifies each received model update based on the previous ones. The proposed modification of the received model updates mimics the imaginary central update irrespective of dropout clients. The theoretical analysis of MimiC shows that divergence between the aggregated and central update diminishes with proper learning rates, leading to its convergence. Simulation results further demonstrate that MimiC maintains stable convergence performance and learns better models than the baseline methods.

Details

1009240
Title
MimiC: Combating Client Dropouts in Federated Learning by Mimicking Central Updates
Publication title
arXiv.org; Ithaca
Publication year
2024
Publication date
Apr 8, 2024
Section
Computer Science
Publisher
Cornell University Library, arXiv.org
Source
arXiv.org
Place of publication
Ithaca
Country of publication
United States
University/institution
Cornell University Library arXiv.org
e-ISSN
2331-8422
Source type
Working Paper
Language of publication
English
Document type
Working Paper
Publication history
 
 
Online publication date
2024-04-09
Milestone dates
2023-06-21 (Submission v1); 2023-06-23 (Submission v2); 2023-12-18 (Submission v3); 2024-04-08 (Submission v4)
Publication history
 
 
   First posting date
09 Apr 2024
ProQuest document ID
2828555630
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/working-papers/mimic-combating-client-dropouts-federated/docview/2828555630/se-2?accountid=208611
Full text outside of ProQuest
Copyright
© 2024. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.
Last updated
2024-04-10
Database
ProQuest One Academic