# Federated CycleGAN for Privacy-Preserving Image-to-Image Translation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.09246 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09246/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 33 of its 43 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Jun 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 33)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Federated Optimization in Heterogeneous Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.06127/) (2018)
- [Improved Techniques for Training GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.03498/) (2016)
- [Arbitrary Style Transfer in Real-time with Adaptive Instance Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06868/) (2017)
- [Beyond a Gaussian Denoiser: Residual Learning of Deep CNN for Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.03981/) (2016)
- [StarGAN v2: Diverse Image Synthesis for Multiple Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01865/) (2019)
- [Least Squares Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.04076/) (2016)
- [Multimodal Unsupervised Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.04732/) (2018)
- [Inverting Gradients -- How easy is it to break privacy in federated learning?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.14053/) (2020)
- [Federated Multi-Task Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.10467/) (2017)
- [Unsupervised Image-to-Image Translation Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.00848/) (2017)
- [Federated Learning with Matched Averaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.06440/) (2020)
- [Bayesian Nonparametric Federated Learning of Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.12022/) (2019)
- [DualGAN: Unsupervised Dual Learning for Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.02510/) (2017)
- [Toward Multimodal Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.11586/) (2017)
- [DRIT++: Diverse Image-to-Image Translation via Disentangled Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.01270/) (2019)
- [Few-Shot Unsupervised Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.01723/) (2019)
- [U-GAT-IT: Unsupervised Generative Attentional Networks with Adaptive Layer-Instance Normalization for Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.10830/) (2019)
- [Unsupervised Image Super-Resolution using Cycle-in-Cycle Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.00437/) (2018)
- [GS-WGAN: A Gradient-Sanitized Approach for Learning Differentially Private Generators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.08265/) (2020)
- [A deep convolutional neural network using directional wavelets for low-dose X-ray CT reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.09736/) (2016)
- [Generative Models for Effective ML on Private, Decentralized Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.06679/) (2019)
- [CycleMorph: Cycle Consistent Unsupervised Deformable Image Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.05772/) (2020)
- [Unsupervised Domain-Specific Deblurring via Disentangled Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.01594/) (2019)
- [COLA: Decentralized Linear Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.04883/) (2018)
- [Learning Invariant Representation for Unsupervised Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.12769/) (2020)
- [Unpaired Deep Learning for Accelerated MRI using Optimal Transport Driven CycleGAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.12967/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [One Model to Unite Them All: Personalized Federated Learning of Multi-Contrast MRI Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.06509/) (2022)
- [FedMed-GAN: Federated Domain Translation on Unsupervised Cross-Modality Brain Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.08953/) (2022)
- [FedMed-ATL: Misaligned Unpaired Brain Image Synthesis via Affine Transform Loss](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.12589/) (2022)
- [Federated Learning for Large Models in Medical Imaging: A Comprehensive Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.20414/) (2025)
- [Federated Time Series Generation on Feature and Temporally Misaligned Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.21072/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Unsupervised image-to-image translation methods such as CycleGAN learn to convert images from one domain to another using unpaired training data sets from different domains. Unfortunately, these approaches still require centrally collected unpaired records, potentially violating privacy and security issues. Although the recent federated learning (FL) allows a neural network to be trained without data exchange, the basic assumption of the FL is that all clients have their own training data from a similar domain, which is different from our image-to-image translation scenario in which each client has images from its unique domain and the goal is to learn image translation between different domains without accessing the target domain data. To address this, here we propose a novel federated CycleGAN architecture that can learn image translation in an unsupervised manner while maintaining the data privacy. Specifically, our approach arises from a novel observation that CycleGAN loss can be decomposed into the sum of client specific local objectives that can be evaluated using only their data. This local objective decomposition allows multiple clients to participate in federated CycleGAN training without sacrificing performance. Furthermore, our method employs novel switchable generator and discriminator architecture using Adaptive Instance Normalization (AdaIN) that significantly reduces the band-width requirement of the federated learning. Our experimental results on various unsupervised image translation tasks show that our federated CycleGAN provides comparable performance compared to the non-federated counterpart.