# Enabling Weak Client Participation via On-device Knowledge Distillation in Heterogeneous Federated Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.11151 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.11151/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Federated, robust and private distillation, one of 12 directions in Knowledge distillation.
- Builds on 29 of its 34 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Mar 2025.

## Placed in

- Knowledge distillation / [Federated, robust and private distillation](https://mlsanity.com/distill/federated-robust-and-private-distillation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [Distilling the Knowledge in a Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.02531/) (2015)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [LEAF: A Benchmark for Federated Settings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.01097/) (2018)
- [Model-Contrastive Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.16257/) (2021)
- [Speech Commands: A Dataset for Limited-Vocabulary Speech Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.03209/) (2018)
- [Ensemble Distillation for Robust Model Fusion in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.07242/) (2020)
- [FedMD: Heterogenous Federated Learning via Model Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.03581/) (2019)
- [HeteroFL: Computation and Communication Efficient Federated Learning for Heterogeneous Clients](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.01264/) (2020)
- [Communication-Efficient On-Device Machine Learning: Federated Distillation and Augmentation under Non-IID Private Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11479/) (2018)
- [FjORD: Fair and Accurate Federated Learning under heterogeneous targets with Ordered Dropout](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.13451/) (2021)
- [Fine-tuning Global Model via Data-Free Knowledge Distillation for Non-IID Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.09249/) (2022)
- [Distillation-Based Semi-Supervised Federated Learning for Communication-Efficient Collaborative Training with Non-IID Private Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.06180/) (2020)
- [FedRolex: Model-Heterogeneous Federated Learning with Rolling Sub-Model Extraction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.01548/) (2022)
- [Heterogeneous Ensemble Knowledge Transfer for Training Large Models in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.12703/) (2022)
- [Peer Collaborative Learning for Online Knowledge Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.04147/) (2020)
- [FedGEMS: Federated Learning of Larger Server Models via Selective Knowledge Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.11027/) (2021)
- [Layer-wise Adaptive Model Aggregation for Scalable Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.10302/) (2021)
- [FedHM: Efficient Federated Learning for Heterogeneous Models via Low-rank Factorization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.14655/) (2021)
- [Locally Estimated Global Perturbations are Better than Local Perturbations for Federated Sharpness-aware Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.18890/) (2024)
- [TimelyFL: Heterogeneity-aware Asynchronous Federated Learning with Adaptive Partial Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.06947/) (2023)
- [PockEngine: Sparse and Efficient Fine-tuning in a Pocket](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.17752/) (2023)
- [FedHe: Heterogeneous Models and Communication-Efficient Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.09910/) (2021)
- [Federated Learning of Large Models at the Edge via Principal Sub-Model Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.13141/) (2022)
- [On-edge Multi-task Transfer Learning: Model and Practice with Data-driven Task Allocation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.02466/) (2021)
- [Partial Model Averaging in Federated Learning: Performance Guarantees and Benefits](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.03789/) (2022)
- [SemiPFL: Personalized Semi-Supervised Federated Learning Framework for Edge Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.08176/) (2022)
- [Embracing Federated Learning: Enabling Weak Client Participation via Partial Model Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.15125/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Overcoming Challenges of Partial Client Participation in Federated Learning : A Comprehensive Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.02887/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Online Knowledge Distillation (KD) is recently highlighted to train large models in Federated Learning (FL) environments. Many existing studies adopt the logit ensemble method to perform KD on the server side. However, they often assume that unlabeled data collected at the edge is centralized on the server. Moreover, the logit ensemble method personalizes local models, which can degrade the quality of soft targets, especially when data is highly non-IID. To address these critical limitations,we propose a novel on-device KD-based heterogeneous FL method. Our approach leverages a small auxiliary model to learn from labeled local data. Subsequently, a subset of clients with strong system resources transfers knowledge to a large model through on-device KD using their unlabeled data. Our extensive experiments demonstrate that our on-device KD-based heterogeneous FL method effectively utilizes the system resources of all edge devices as well as the unlabeled data, resulting in higher accuracy compared to SOTA KD-based FL methods.