Demo: An experimental environment based on mini-PCs for federated learning research

There is a growing research interest in Federated Learning (FL), a promising approach for data privacy preservation and proximity of training to the network edge, where data is generated. Resource consumption for Machine Learning (ML) training and inference is important for edge nodes, but most of the proposed protocols and algorithms for FL are evaluated by simulations. In this demo paper, we present an environment based on distributed mini-PCs to enable experimental study of FL protocols and algorithms. We have installed low-capacity mini-PCs within a wireless city-level mesh network and deployed container-based FL components on these nodes. We show the deployed FL clients and server at different nodes in the city and demonstrate how an FL experiment can be set and run in a real environment.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871582 — NGIatlantic.eu and was partially supported by the Spanish Government under contracts PID2019-106774RB-C21, PCI2019-111851-2 (LeadingEdge CHIST-ERA), PCI2019-111850-2 (DiPET CHIST-ERA). The work of C.-H. Liu was supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) under Award CNS-2006453 and in part by Mississippi State University under Grant ORED 253551-060702. The work of L. Wei is supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation (#2150486 and #2006612). I Koutsopoulos acknowledges support from the CHIST-ERA grant CHIST-ERA-18-SDCDN-004 (GSRI grant number T11EPA4-00056).
Peer Reviewed
Postprint (author's final draft)