# Differentially Private Over-the-Air Federated Learning Over MIMO Fading Channels

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.10982 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.10982/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 24 of its 46 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 Jun 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 24 of 24)

- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Fashion-MNIST: a Novel Image Dataset for Benchmarking Machine Learning Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.07747/) (2017)
- [Deep Learning with Differential Privacy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.00133/) (2016)
- [Federated Learning: Challenges, Methods, and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07873/) (2019)
- [Local SGD Converges Fast and Communicates Little](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.09767/) (2018)
- [Federated Optimization: Distributed Machine Learning for On-Device Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02527/) (2016)
- [Federated Learning with Differential Privacy: Algorithms and Performance Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.00222/) (2019)
- [Exploiting Unintended Feature Leakage in Collaborative Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.04049/) (2018)
- [See through Gradients: Image Batch Recovery via GradInversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.07586/) (2021)
- [Beyond Inferring Class Representatives: User-Level Privacy Leakage From Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.00535/) (2018)
- [Federated Learning via Over-the-Air Computation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.11750/) (2018)
- [Broadband Analog Aggregation for Low-Latency Federated Edge Learning (Extended Version)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.11494/) (2018)
- [The Roadmap to 6G -- AI Empowered Wireless Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.11686/) (2019)
- [Privacy For Free: Wireless Federated Learning Via Uncoded Transmission With Adaptive Power Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.05459/) (2020)
- [Wireless Federated Learning with Local Differential Privacy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.05151/) (2020)
- [Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Enabled Federated Learning: A Unified Communication-Learning Design Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.10282/) (2020)
- [Privacy Amplification for Federated Learning via User Sampling and Wireless Aggregation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.01953/) (2021)
- [Private Wireless Federated Learning with Anonymous Over-the-Air Computation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.08579/) (2020)
- [Differentially Private AirComp Federated Learning with Power Adaptation Harnessing Receiver Noise](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.06337/) (2020)
- [Efficient Federated Learning over Multiple Access Channel with Differential Privacy Constraints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.07776/) (2020)
- [Differentially Private Federated Learning via Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.17028/) (2022)
- [CFLIT: Coexisting Federated Learning and Information Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12884/) (2022)
- [Privacy-Preserving Wireless Federated Learning Exploiting Inherent Hardware Impairments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.10639/) (2021)
- [Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Empowered Over-the-Air Federated Edge Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.02353/) (2021)

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

- [A Survey on Cloud-Edge-Terminal Collaborative Intelligence in AIoT Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.18803/) (2025)
- [Enhancing Convergence, Privacy and Fairness for Wireless Personalized Federated Learning: Quantization-Assisted Min-Max Fair Scheduling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.02422/) (2025)
- [Differential Privacy as a Perk: Federated Learning over Multiple-Access Fading Channels with a Multi-Antenna Base Station](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.23463/) (2025)
- [Providing Differential Privacy for Federated Learning Over Wireless: A Cross-layer Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.04408/) (2024)
- [Convergence-Privacy-Fairness Trade-Off in Personalized Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.14251/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Federated learning (FL) enables edge devices to collaboratively train machine learning models, with model communication replacing direct data uploading. While over-the-air model aggregation improves communication efficiency, uploading models to an edge server over wireless networks can pose privacy risks. Differential privacy (DP) is a widely used quantitative technique to measure statistical data privacy in FL. Previous research has focused on over-the-air FL with a single-antenna server, leveraging communication noise to enhance user-level DP. This approach achieves the so-called "free DP" by controlling transmit power rather than introducing additional DP-preserving mechanisms at devices, such as adding artificial noise. In this paper, we study differentially private over-the-air FL over a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) fading channel. We show that FL model communication with a multiple-antenna server amplifies privacy leakage as the multiple-antenna server employs separate receive combining for model aggregation and information inference. Consequently, relying solely on communication noise, as done in the multiple-input single-output system, cannot meet high privacy requirements, and a device-side privacy-preserving mechanism is necessary for optimal DP design. We analyze the learning convergence and privacy loss of the studied FL system and propose a transceiver design algorithm based on alternating optimization. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves a better privacy-learning trade-off compared to prior work.