# Energizing Federated Learning via Filter-Aware Attention

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.12049 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12049/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 26 of its 38 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 18 Nov 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 26 of 26)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [Swin Transformer: Hierarchical Vision Transformer using Shifted Windows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14030/) (2021)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Squeeze-and-Excitation Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.01507/) (2017)
- [Federated Optimization in Heterogeneous Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.06127/) (2018)
- [CBAM: Convolutional Block Attention Module](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.06521/) (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)
- [Personalized Federated Learning with Moreau Envelopes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.08848/) (2020)
- [FedBN: Federated Learning on Non-IID Features via Local Batch Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.07623/) (2021)
- [Federated Learning with Personalization Layers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.00818/) (2019)
- [FedProto: Federated Prototype Learning across Heterogeneous Clients](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.00243/) (2021)
- [Think Locally, Act Globally: Federated Learning with Local and Global Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.01523/) (2020)
- [FedDG: Federated Domain Generalization on Medical Image Segmentation via Episodic Learning in Continuous Frequency Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.06030/) (2021)
- [Coordinate Attention for Efficient Mobile Network Design](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.02907/) (2021)
- [Personalized Federated Learning using Hypernetworks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.04628/) (2021)
- [FedKD: Communication Efficient Federated Learning via Knowledge Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.13323/) (2021)
- [Learning to Branch for Multi-Task Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.01895/) (2020)
- [Layer-wised Model Aggregation for Personalized Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.03993/) (2022)
- [SemiFL: Semi-Supervised Federated Learning for Unlabeled Clients with Alternate Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.01432/) (2021)
- [FedTP: Federated Learning by Transformer Personalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.01572/) (2022)
- [Recycling Model Updates in Federated Learning: Are Gradient Subspaces Low-Rank?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.00280/) (2022)
- [Hypernetwork-based Personalized Federated Learning for Multi-Institutional CT Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.03709/) (2022)
- [MANAS: Multi-Scale and Multi-Level Neural Architecture Search for Low-Dose CT Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.12995/) (2021)
- [Personalized Federated Hypernetworks for Privacy Preservation in Multi-Task Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.06820/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Federated learning (FL) is a promising distributed paradigm, eliminating the need for data sharing but facing challenges from data heterogeneity. Personalized parameter generation through a hypernetwork proves effective, yet existing methods fail to personalize local model structures. This leads to redundant parameters struggling to adapt to diverse data distributions. To address these limitations, we propose FedOFA, utilizing personalized orthogonal filter attention for parameter recalibration. The core is the Two-stream Filter-aware Attention (TFA) module, meticulously designed to extract personalized filter-aware attention maps, incorporating Intra-Filter Attention (IntraFa) and Inter-Filter Attention (InterFA) streams. These streams enhance representation capability and explore optimal implicit structures for local models. Orthogonal regularization minimizes redundancy by averting inter-correlation between filters. Furthermore, we introduce an Attention-Guided Pruning Strategy (AGPS) for communication efficiency. AGPS selectively retains crucial neurons while masking redundant ones, reducing communication costs without performance sacrifice. Importantly, FedOFA operates on the server side, incurring no additional computational cost on the client, making it advantageous in communication-constrained scenarios. Extensive experiments validate superior performance over state-of-the-art approaches, with code availability upon paper acceptance.
