Decentralized Federated Learning: Model Update Tracking Under Imperfect Information Sharing

A novel Decentralized Noisy Model Update Tracking Federated Learning algorithm (FedNMUT) is proposed, which is tailored to function efficiently in the presence of noisy communication channels that reflect imperfect information exchange. This algorithm uses gradient tracking to minimize the impact of data heterogeneity while minimizing communication overhead. The proposed algorithm incorporates noise into its parameters to mimic the conditions of noisy communication channels, thereby enabling consensus among clients through a communication graph topology in such challenging environments. FedNMUT prioritizes parameter sharing and noise incorporation to increase the resilience of decentralized learning systems against noisy communications. Through theoretical and empirical validation, it is demonstrated that the performance of FedNMUT is superior compared to the existing state-of-the-art methods and conventional parameter-mixing approaches in dealing with imperfect information sharing. This proves the capability of the proposed algorithm to counteract the negative effects of communication noise in a decentralized learning framework.