FS-Real: A Real-World Cross-Device Federated Learning Platform

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Abstract

Federated learning (FL) is a general distributed machine learning paradigm that provides solutions for tasks where data cannot be shared directly. Due to the difficulties in communication management and heterogeneity of distributed data and devices, initiating and using an FL algorithm for real-world cross-device scenarios requires significant repetitive effort but may not be transferable to similar projects. To reduce the effort required for developing and deploying FL algorithms, we present FS-REAL, an open-source FL platform designed to address the need of a general and efficient infrastructure for real-world cross-device FL. In this paper, we introduce the key components of FS-REAL and demonstrate that FS-REAL has the following capabilities: 1) reducing the programming burden of FL algorithm development with plug-and-play and adaptable runtimes on Android and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices; 2) handling a large number of heterogeneous devices efficiently and robustly with our communication management components; 3) supporting a wide range of advanced FL algorithms with flexible configuration and extension; 4) alleviating the costs and efforts for deployment, evaluation, simulation, and performance optimization of FL algorithms with automatized tool kits.