Federated Continual Learning: Concepts, Challenges, and Solutions
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Abstract (arXiv)
Federated Continual Learning (FCL) has emerged as a robust solution for collaborative model training in dynamic environments, where data samples are continuously generated and distributed across multiple devices. This survey provides a comprehensive review of FCL, focusing on key challenges such as heterogeneity, model stability, communication overhead, and privacy preservation. We explore various forms of heterogeneity and their impact on model performance. Solutions to non-IID data, resource-constrained platforms, and personalized learning are reviewed in an effort to show the complexities of handling heterogeneous data distributions. Next, we review techniques for ensuring model stability and avoiding catastrophic forgetting, which are critical in non-stationary environments. Privacy-preserving techniques are another aspect of FCL that have been reviewed in this work. This survey has integrated insights from federated learning and continual learning to present strategies for improving the efficacy and scalability of FCL systems, making it applicable to a wide range of real-world scenarios.
Key facts. Cited by 13 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 122 of its 276 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 10 Feb 2025.
Builds on
122 of 276 references.
References · 122
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38 more
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Citing papers per year: 2025: 3; 2026: 10.
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- 2025Federated Learning for Large Models in Medical Imaging: A Comprehensive Reviewcited by 2
- 2025FedTeddi: Temporal Drift and Divergence Aware Scheduling for Timely Federated Edge Learningcited by 1
- 2026Federated continual learning: A comprehensive survey on lifelong and privacy-preserving learning over distributed and non-stationary datacited by 1
- 2026C2FL: Clustered Continual Federated Learning under Spatial and Temporal Driftcited by 1
- 2025Shift Happens: Mixture of Experts based Continual Adaptation in Federated Learningcited by 0
- 2026Catastrophic Forgetting Resilient One-Shot Incremental Federated Learningcited by 0
- 2026Agentic Federated Learning: The Future of Distributed Training Orchestrationcited by 0
- 2026Parameter Efficient Multi-Class Intelligent Scheduling for Multimodal Online Distributed Industrial Anomaly Detectioncited by 0
- 2026When Generator Replay Degrades: Projected Rehearsal Orchestration for Heterogeneous Federated Class-Incremental Learningcited by 0
- 2026SpeechLLM Meets Federated Learning for End-to-End ASR: English and Italian Case Studiescited by 0
- 2026Sylvas: Synergistic Learning Value based Device Scheduling in Federated Continual Learningcited by 0
- 2026MECAIL: Communication-Aware Incremental Learning for Object Detection with 14.6 KB Spatiotemporal Expertscited by 0
- 2026ReSCENE: Server-Side Replay for Structural Mitigation of Catastrophic Forgetting in Federated Continual Learning30 Sep 2026
- 2026MECAIL: Communication-Aware Incremental Learning for Object Detection with 14.6 KB Spatiotemporal Experts21 Sep 2026
- 2026Sylvas: Synergistic Learning Value based Device Scheduling in Federated Continual Learning14 Sep 2026
- 2026SpeechLLM Meets Federated Learning for End-to-End ASR: English and Italian Case Studies28 Jul 2026
- 2026C2FL: Clustered Continual Federated Learning under Spatial and Temporal Drift16 Jun 2026
- 2026When Generator Replay Degrades: Projected Rehearsal Orchestration for Heterogeneous Federated Class-Incremental Learning14 Jun 2026
- 2026Federated continual learning: A comprehensive survey on lifelong and privacy-preserving learning over distributed and non-stationary data9 Jun 2026
- 2026Parameter Efficient Multi-Class Intelligent Scheduling for Multimodal Online Distributed Industrial Anomaly Detection15 May 2026
- 2026Agentic Federated Learning: The Future of Distributed Training Orchestration6 Apr 2026
- 2026Catastrophic Forgetting Resilient One-Shot Incremental Federated Learning19 Feb 2026
- 2025FedTeddi: Temporal Drift and Divergence Aware Scheduling for Timely Federated Edge Learning9 Sep 2025
- 2025Federated Learning for Large Models in Medical Imaging: A Comprehensive Review28 Aug 2025
1 more
- 2025Federated Learning for Large Models in Medical Imaging: A Comprehensive Reviewcited by 2
- 2025FedTeddi: Temporal Drift and Divergence Aware Scheduling for Timely Federated Edge Learningcited by 1
- 2026Federated continual learning: A comprehensive survey on lifelong and privacy-preserving learning over distributed and non-stationary datacited by 1
- 2026C2FL: Clustered Continual Federated Learning under Spatial and Temporal Driftcited by 1
- 2026Catastrophic Forgetting Resilient One-Shot Incremental Federated Learningcited by 0
- 2026Parameter Efficient Multi-Class Intelligent Scheduling for Multimodal Online Distributed Industrial Anomaly Detectioncited by 0
- 2026When Generator Replay Degrades: Projected Rehearsal Orchestration for Heterogeneous Federated Class-Incremental Learningcited by 0
- 2026SpeechLLM Meets Federated Learning for End-to-End ASR: English and Italian Case Studiescited by 0
- 2026Sylvas: Synergistic Learning Value based Device Scheduling in Federated Continual Learningcited by 0
- 2026MECAIL: Communication-Aware Incremental Learning for Object Detection with 14.6 KB Spatiotemporal Expertscited by 0
- 2026ReSCENE: Server-Side Replay for Structural Mitigation of Catastrophic Forgetting in Federated Continual Learningcited by 0
- 2026ReSCENE: Server-Side Replay for Structural Mitigation of Catastrophic Forgetting in Federated Continual Learning30 Sep 2026
- 2026MECAIL: Communication-Aware Incremental Learning for Object Detection with 14.6 KB Spatiotemporal Experts21 Sep 2026
- 2026Sylvas: Synergistic Learning Value based Device Scheduling in Federated Continual Learning14 Sep 2026
- 2026SpeechLLM Meets Federated Learning for End-to-End ASR: English and Italian Case Studies28 Jul 2026
- 2026C2FL: Clustered Continual Federated Learning under Spatial and Temporal Drift16 Jun 2026
- 2026When Generator Replay Degrades: Projected Rehearsal Orchestration for Heterogeneous Federated Class-Incremental Learning14 Jun 2026
- 2026Federated continual learning: A comprehensive survey on lifelong and privacy-preserving learning over distributed and non-stationary data9 Jun 2026
- 2026Parameter Efficient Multi-Class Intelligent Scheduling for Multimodal Online Distributed Industrial Anomaly Detection15 May 2026
- 2026Catastrophic Forgetting Resilient One-Shot Incremental Federated Learning19 Feb 2026
- 2025FedTeddi: Temporal Drift and Divergence Aware Scheduling for Timely Federated Edge Learning9 Sep 2025
- 2025Federated Learning for Large Models in Medical Imaging: A Comprehensive Review28 Aug 2025