# FedPCA: Noise-Robust Fair Federated Learning via Performance-Capacity Analysis

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.10567 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.10567/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 30 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 13 Mar 2025.

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

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [A Simple Framework for Contrastive Learning of Visual Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.05709/) (2020)
- [Representation Learning with Contrastive Predictive Coding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.03748/) (2018)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Benchmarking Neural Network Robustness to Common Corruptions and Perturbations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.12261/) (2019)
- [Supervised Contrastive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.11362/) (2020)
- [Co-teaching: Robust Training of Deep Neural Networks with Extremely Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.06872/) (2018)
- [Byzantine-Robust Distributed Learning: Towards Optimal Statistical Rates](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.01498/) (2018)
- [Ditto: Fair and Robust Federated Learning Through Personalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.04221/) (2020)
- [Long-tail learning via logit adjustment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.07314/) (2020)
- [Skin Lesion Analysis Toward Melanoma Detection: A Challenge at the 2017 International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI), Hosted by the International Skin Imaging Collaboration (ISIC)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.05006/) (2017)
- [Agnostic Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.00146/) (2019)
- [Early-Learning Regularization Prevents Memorization of Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.00151/) (2020)
- [Fair Resource Allocation in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.10497/) (2019)
- [Robust Aggregation for Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.13445/) (2019)
- [Attack of the Tails: Yes, You Really Can Backdoor Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.05084/) (2020)
- [BCN20000: Dermoscopic Lesions in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.02288/) (2019)
- [Surrogate Gap Minimization Improves Sharpness-Aware Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.08065/) (2022)
- [Change is Hard: A Closer Look at Subpopulation Shift](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.12254/) (2023)
- [Federated Learning for Generalization, Robustness, Fairness: A Survey and Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.06750/) (2023)
- [Adaptive Early-Learning Correction for Segmentation from Noisy Annotations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.03740/) (2021)
- [FedCorr: Multi-Stage Federated Learning for Label Noise Correction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.04677/) (2022)
- [Fair Federated Medical Image Segmentation via Client Contribution Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.16520/) (2023)
- [A Reputation Mechanism Is All You Need: Collaborative Fairness and Adversarial Robustness in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.10464/) (2020)
- [FedNoRo: Towards Noise-Robust Federated Learning by Addressing Class Imbalance and Label Noise Heterogeneity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.05230/) (2023)
- [Robust Generalization against Photon-Limited Corruptions via Worst-Case Sharpness Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13087/) (2023)
- [On the Importance of Feature Separability in Predicting Out-Of-Distribution Error](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.15488/) (2023)
- [FedDiv: Collaborative Noise Filtering for Federated Learning with Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.12263/) (2023)
- [Client-Level Differential Privacy via Adaptive Intermediary in Federated Medical Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.12542/) (2023)
- [From Optimization to Generalization: Fair Federated Learning against Quality Shift via Inter-Client Sharpness Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.17805/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [FedRG: Unleashing the Representation Geometry for Federated Learning with Noisy Clients](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.19722/) (2026)
- [Data-Free Contribution Estimation in Federated Learning using Gradient von Neumann Entropy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.22562/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Training a model that effectively handles both common and rare data-i.e., achieving performance fairness-is crucial in federated learning (FL). While existing fair FL methods have shown effectiveness, they remain vulnerable to mislabeled data. Ensuring robustness in fair FL is therefore essential. However, fairness and robustness inherently compete, which causes robust strategies to hinder fairness. In this paper, we attribute this competition to the homogeneity in loss patterns exhibited by rare and mislabeled data clients, preventing existing loss-based fair and robust FL methods from effectively distinguishing and handling these two distinct client types. To address this, we propose performance-capacity analysis, which jointly considers model performance on each client and its capacity to handle the dataset, measured by loss and a newly introduced feature dispersion score. This allows mislabeled clients to be identified by their significantly deviated performance relative to capacity while preserving rare data clients. Building on this, we introduce FedPCA, an FL method that robustly achieves fairness. FedPCA first identifies mislabeled clients via a Gaussian Mixture Model on loss-dispersion pairs, then applies fairness and robustness strategies in global aggregation and local training by adjusting client weights and selectively using reliable data. Extensive experiments on three datasets demonstrate FedPCA's effectiveness in tackling this complex challenge. Code will be publicly available upon acceptance.