# Feature Matching Data Synthesis for Non-IID Federated Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.04761 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04761/

## Key facts

- Cited by 13 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 44 of its 62 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Aug 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 44)

- [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)
- [Grad-CAM: Visual Explanations from Deep Networks via Gradient-based Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02391/) (2016)
- [Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00667/) (2022)
- [mixup: Beyond Empirical Risk Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.09412/) (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)
- [Learning Deep Features for Discriminative Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.04150/) (2015)
- [Federated Learning: Challenges, Methods, and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07873/) (2019)
- [On the Convergence of FedAvg on Non-IID Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.02189/) (2019)
- [Federated Learning with Non-IID Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.00582/) (2018)
- [Tackling the Objective Inconsistency Problem in Heterogeneous Federated Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.07481/) (2020)
- [Model-Contrastive Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.16257/) (2021)
- [Inverting Gradients -- How easy is it to break privacy in federated learning?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.14053/) (2020)
- [Federated Learning on Non-IID Data Silos: An Experimental Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.02079/) (2021)
- [Federated Learning Based on Dynamic Regularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.04263/) (2021)
- [An Efficient Framework for Clustered Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.04088/) (2020)
- [Dreaming to Distill: Data-free Knowledge Transfer via DeepInversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.08795/) (2019)
- [Understanding Deep Image Representations by Inverting Them](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.0035/) (2014)
- [Data-Free Knowledge Distillation for Heterogeneous Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.10056/) (2021)
- [iDLG: Improved Deep Leakage from Gradients](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.02610/) (2020)
- [Understanding Neural Networks Through Deep Visualization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.06579/) (2015)
- [See through Gradients: Image Batch Recovery via GradInversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.07586/) (2021)
- [No Fear of Heterogeneity: Classifier Calibration for Federated Learning with Non-IID Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05001/) (2021)
- [Safety-Enhanced Autonomous Driving Using Interpretable Sensor Fusion Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.14024/) (2022)
- [Synthesizing the preferred inputs for neurons in neural networks via deep generator networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1605.09304/) (2016)
- [Fine-tuning Global Model via Data-Free Knowledge Distillation for Non-IID Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.09249/) (2022)
- [Always Be Dreaming: A New Approach for Data-Free Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09701/) (2021)
- [FedMix: Approximation of Mixup under Mean Augmented Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.00233/) (2021)
- [Towards Fair Federated Learning with Zero-Shot Data Augmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.13417/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 13 of 13)

- [FedCiR: Client-Invariant Representation Learning for Federated Non-IID Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.15786/) (2023)
- [FedRFQ: Prototype-Based Federated Learning with Reduced Redundancy, Minimal Failure, and Enhanced Quality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.07558/) (2024)
- [Federated and Transfer Learning for Cancer Detection Based on Image Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.20126/) (2024)
- [IMFL-AIGC: Incentive Mechanism Design for Federated Learning Empowered by Artificial Intelligence Generated Content](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.08526/) (2024)
- [FedDyMem: Efficient Federated Learning with Dynamic Memory and Memory-Reduce for Unsupervised Image Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.21012/) (2025)
- [Adaptive Federated Distillation for Multi-Domain Non-IID Textual Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.20557/) (2025)
- [GFPL: Generative Federated Prototype Learning for Resource-Constrained and Data-Imbalanced Vision Task](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.21873/) (2026)
- [Robust Federated Learning in Unreliable Wireless Networks: A Client Selection Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.17260/) (2025)
- [AIGC-assisted Federated Learning for Edge Intelligence: Architecture Design, Research Challenges and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20166/) (2025)
- [Stratify: Rethinking Federated Learning for Non-IID Data through Balanced Sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.13462/) (2025)
- [A Multi-Prototype-Guided Federated Knowledge Distillation Approach in AI-RAN Enabled Multi-Access Edge Computing System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.09727/) (2026)
- [From Data Heterogeneity to Convergence: A Data-Centric Review of Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.10595/) (2026)
- [Joint Optimization for Federated Learning and Transmission over Unreliable Wireless Networks with Heterogeneous Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.14246/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Federated learning (FL) has emerged as a privacy-preserving paradigm that trains neural networks on edge devices without collecting data at a central server. However, FL encounters an inherent challenge in dealing with non-independent and identically distributed (non-IID) data among devices. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a hard feature matching data synthesis (HFMDS) method to share auxiliary data besides local models. Specifically, synthetic data are generated by learning the essential class-relevant features of real samples and discarding the redundant features, which helps to effectively tackle the non-IID issue. For better privacy preservation, we propose a hard feature augmentation method to transfer real features towards the decision boundary, with which the synthetic data not only improve the model generalization but also erase the information of real features. By integrating the proposed HFMDS method with FL, we present a novel FL framework with data augmentation to relieve data heterogeneity. The theoretical analysis highlights the effectiveness of our proposed data synthesis method in solving the non-IID challenge. Simulation results further demonstrate that our proposed HFMDS-FL algorithm outperforms the baselines in terms of accuracy, privacy preservation, and computational cost on various benchmark datasets.