FedConv: A Learning-on-Model Paradigm for Heterogeneous Federated Clients
To address the uneven computational burden imposed by client-side resource heterogeneity in federated learning (FL), this paper proposes FedConv. It trains lightweight submodels directly in compressed convolutional form, eliminating decompression overhead. FedConv introduces the novel “learning-on-model” paradigm—the first approach enabling end-to-end training of compressed submodels. It further designs a transposed-convolution-based expansion mechanism to unify aggregation of heterogeneous submodels while preserving personalized parameters. Complemented by joint optimization on the server using a small public dataset, FedConv achieves an average accuracy improvement of 35.2% across six benchmark datasets, while reducing computational cost by 33.1% and communication cost by 24.8%, significantly outperforming existing FL methods.