# FedALA: Adaptive Local Aggregation for Personalized Federated Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.01197 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.01197/

## Key facts

- Cited by 122 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 27 of its 36 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Dec 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 27 of 27)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Model-Agnostic Meta-Learning for Fast Adaptation of Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.03400/) (2017)
- [Advances and Open Problems in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04977/) (2019)
- [Federated Optimization in Heterogeneous Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.06127/) (2018)
- [Character-level Convolutional Networks for Text Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1509.01626/) (2015)
- [Deep Reinforcement Learning with Double Q-learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1509.06461/) (2015)
- [How transferable are features in deep neural networks?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.1792/) (2014)
- [Visualizing the Loss Landscape of Neural Nets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.09913/) (2017)
- [Federated Learning with Non-IID Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.00582/) (2018)
- [Deep Leakage from Gradients](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.08935/) (2019)
- [Tackling the Objective Inconsistency Problem in Heterogeneous Federated Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.07481/) (2020)
- [Bag of Tricks for Efficient Text Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.01759/) (2016)
- [Model-Contrastive Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.16257/) (2021)
- [Ensemble Distillation for Robust Model Fusion in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.07242/) (2020)
- [Ditto: Fair and Robust Federated Learning Through Personalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.04221/) (2020)
- [Personalized Federated Learning with Moreau Envelopes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.08848/) (2020)
- [Federated Learning with Matched Averaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.06440/) (2020)
- [Exploiting Shared Representations for Personalized Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.07078/) (2021)
- [Data-Free Knowledge Distillation for Heterogeneous Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.10056/) (2021)
- [A Downsampled Variant of ImageNet as an Alternative to the CIFAR datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.08819/) (2017)
- [FedPAQ: A Communication-Efficient Federated Learning Method with Periodic Averaging and Quantization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.13014/) (2019)
- [Personalized Cross-Silo Federated Learning on Non-IID Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.03797/) (2020)
- [Personalized Federated Learning using Hypernetworks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.04628/) (2021)
- [Personalized Federated Learning with First Order Model Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.08565/) (2020)
- [Adaptive Gradient Methods with Dynamic Bound of Learning Rate](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.09843/) (2019)
- [Adapt to Adaptation: Learning Personalization for Cross-Silo Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.08394/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 122)

- [No Fear of Classifier Biases: Neural Collapse Inspired Federated Learning with Synthetic and Fixed Classifier](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.10058/) (2023)
- [Efficient Model Personalization in Federated Learning via Client-Specific Prompt Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.15367/) (2023)
- [FedTGP: Trainable Global Prototypes with Adaptive-Margin-Enhanced Contrastive Learning for Data and Model Heterogeneity in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.03230/) (2024)
- [Eliminating Domain Bias for Federated Learning in Representation Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.14975/) (2023)
- [FedCP: Separating Feature Information for Personalized Federated Learning via Conditional Policy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.01217/) (2023)
- [GPFL: Simultaneously Learning Global and Personalized Feature Information for Personalized Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10279/) (2023)
- [PFLlib: A Beginner-Friendly and Comprehensive Personalized Federated Learning Library and Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.04992/) (2023)
- [An Upload-Efficient Scheme for Transferring Knowledge From a Server-Side Pre-trained Generator to Clients in Heterogeneous Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.15760/) (2024)
- [Personalized Adapter for Large Meteorology Model on Devices: Towards Weather Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.20348/) (2024)
- [Personalized Federated Learning via Feature Distribution Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.00329/) (2024)
- [Free-Rider and Conflict Aware Collaboration Formation for Cross-Silo Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.19321/) (2024)
- [PM-MOE: Mixture of Experts on Private Model Parameters for Personalized Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.00354/) (2025)
- [FedLPS: Heterogeneous Federated Learning for Multiple Tasks with Local Parameter Sharing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.08578/) (2024)
- [Personalized Federated Learning with Mixture of Models for Adaptive Prediction and Model Fine-Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.21547/) (2024)
- [Federated Unsupervised Domain Generalization using Global and Local Alignment of Gradients](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.16304/) (2024)
- [Free Lunch for Federated Remote Sensing Target Fine-Grained Classification: A Parameter-Efficient Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.01493/) (2024)
- [FedLPPA: Learning Personalized Prompt and Aggregation for Federated Weakly-supervised Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.17502/) (2024)
- [Lurking in the shadows: Unveiling Stealthy Backdoor Attacks against Personalized Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.06207/) (2024)
- [Enhancing Federated Domain Adaptation with Multi-Domain Prototype-Based Federated Fine-Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.07738/) (2024)
- [Adaptive Aggregation Weights for Federated Segmentation of Pancreas MRI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.22530/) (2024)
- [Differentially Private Federated Learning With Time-Adaptive Privacy Spending](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.18706/) (2025)
- [Privacy Preserving Machine Learning Model Personalization through Federated Personalized Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.01788/) (2025)
- [Unifying and Personalizing Weakly-supervised Federated Medical Image Segmentation via Adaptive Representation and Aggregation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.05635/) (2023)
- [UNIDEAL: Curriculum Knowledge Distillation Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.08961/) (2023)
- [Federated Distillation for Medical Image Classification: Towards Trustworthy Computer-Aided Diagnosis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.02261/) (2024)
- [Towards Satellite Non-IID Imagery: A Spectral Clustering-Assisted Federated Learning Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13602/) (2024)
- [F3OCUS -- Federated Finetuning of Vision-Language Foundation Models with Optimal Client Layer Updating Strategy via Multi-objective Meta-Heuristics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.11912/) (2024)
- [Homophily Heterogeneity Matters in Graph Federated Learning: A Spectrum Sharing and Complementing Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13732/) (2025)
- [PFL-GAN: When Client Heterogeneity Meets Generative Models in Personalized Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.12454/) (2023)
- [Towards Fast and Stable Federated Learning: Confronting Heterogeneity via Knowledge Anchor](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02416/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

A key challenge in federated learning (FL) is the statistical heterogeneity that impairs the generalization of the global model on each client. To address this, we propose a method Federated learning with Adaptive Local Aggregation (FedALA) by capturing the desired information in the global model for client models in personalized FL. The key component of FedALA is an Adaptive Local Aggregation (ALA) module, which can adaptively aggregate the downloaded global model and local model towards the local objective on each client to initialize the local model before training in each iteration. To evaluate the effectiveness of FedALA, we conduct extensive experiments with five benchmark datasets in computer vision and natural language processing domains. FedALA outperforms eleven state-of-the-art baselines by up to 3.27% in test accuracy. Furthermore, we also apply ALA module to other federated learning methods and achieve up to 24.19% improvement in test accuracy.
