# Corrected with the Latest Version: Make Robust Asynchronous Federated Learning Possible

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.04081 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.04081/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 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 31 of its 41 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 5 Apr 2025.

## Placed in

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

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 31)

- [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)
- [Fashion-MNIST: a Novel Image Dataset for Benchmarking Machine Learning Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.07747/) (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)
- [Adaptive Federated Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.00295/) (2020)
- [Measuring the Effects of Non-Identical Data Distribution for Federated Visual Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.06335/) (2019)
- [Model-Contrastive Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.16257/) (2021)
- [Ensemble Distillation for Robust Model Fusion in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.07242/) (2020)
- [FedBN: Federated Learning on Non-IID Features via Local Batch Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.07623/) (2021)
- [FedMD: Heterogenous Federated Learning via Model Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.03581/) (2019)
- [Dreaming to Distill: Data-free Knowledge Transfer via DeepInversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.08795/) (2019)
- [Data-Free Knowledge Distillation for Heterogeneous Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.10056/) (2021)
- [Asynchronous Federated Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.03934/) (2019)
- [Communication-Efficient On-Device Machine Learning: Federated Distillation and Augmentation under Non-IID Private Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11479/) (2018)
- [Federated Learning with Buffered Asynchronous Aggregation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.06639/) (2021)
- [Federated Learning for Smart Healthcare: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.08834/) (2021)
- [Learning From Multiple Experts: Self-paced Knowledge Distillation for Long-tailed Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.01536/) (2020)
- [Fine-tuning Global Model via Data-Free Knowledge Distillation for Non-IID Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.09249/) (2022)
- [Zero-Shot Knowledge Distillation in Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.08114/) (2019)
- [Cronus: Robust and Heterogeneous Collaborative Learning with Black-Box Knowledge Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.11279/) (2019)
- [Asynchronous Federated Learning on Heterogeneous Devices: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.04269/) (2021)
- [SAFA: a Semi-Asynchronous Protocol for Fast Federated Learning with Low Overhead](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.01355/) (2019)
- [Practical One-Shot Federated Learning for Cross-Silo Setting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.01017/) (2020)
- [From Distributed Machine Learning to Federated Learning: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.14362/) (2021)
- [Ensemble Knowledge Distillation for Learning Improved and Efficient Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.08097/) (2019)
- [Preserving Privacy in Federated Learning with Ensemble Cross-Domain Knowledge Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.04599/) (2022)
- [FedASMU: Efficient Asynchronous Federated Learning with Dynamic Staleness-aware Model Update](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.05770/) (2023)
- [FedZKT: Zero-Shot Knowledge Transfer towards Resource-Constrained Federated Learning with Heterogeneous On-Device Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.03775/) (2021)
- [FLGo: A Fully Customizable Federated Learning Platform](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.12079/) (2023)

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

- [AFBS:Buffer Gradient Selection in Semi-asynchronous Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.12754/) (2025)
- [Reviving Stale Updates: Data-Free Knowledge Distillation for Asynchronous Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.00655/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

As an emerging paradigm of federated learning, asynchronous federated learning offers significant speed advantages over traditional synchronous federated learning. Unlike synchronous federated learning, which requires waiting for all clients to complete updates before aggregation, asynchronous federated learning aggregates the models that have arrived in realtime, greatly improving training speed. However, this mechanism also introduces the issue of client model version inconsistency. When the differences between models of different versions during aggregation become too large, it may lead to conflicts, thereby reducing the models accuracy. To address this issue, this paper proposes an asynchronous federated learning version correction algorithm based on knowledge distillation, named FedADT. FedADT applies knowledge distillation before aggregating gradients, using the latest global model to correct outdated information, thus effectively reducing the negative impact of outdated gradients on the training process. Additionally, FedADT introduces an adaptive weighting function that adjusts the knowledge distillation weight according to different stages of training, helps mitigate the misleading effects caused by the poorer performance of the global model in the early stages of training. This method significantly improves the overall performance of asynchronous federated learning without adding excessive computational overhead. We conducted experimental comparisons with several classical algorithms, and the results demonstrate that FedADT achieves significant improvements over other asynchronous methods and outperforms all methods in terms of convergence speed.