# Contrastive Continual Learning for Model Adaptability in Internet of Things

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.04881 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.04881/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 23 of its 34 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 4 Feb 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 23 of 23)

- [A Simple Framework for Contrastive Learning of Visual Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.05709/) (2020)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Momentum Contrast for Unsupervised Visual Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.05722/) (2019)
- [Overcoming catastrophic forgetting in neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00796/) (2016)
- [Bootstrap your own latent: A new approach to self-supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.07733/) (2020)
- [Supervised Contrastive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.11362/) (2020)
- [iCaRL: Incremental Classifier and Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07725/) (2016)
- [Continual Lifelong Learning with Neural Networks: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.07569/) (2018)
- [Co2L: Contrastive Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.14413/) (2021)
- [Uncertainty-based Continual Learning with Adaptive Regularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11614/) (2019)
- [Continual Learning with Node-Importance based Adaptive Group Sparse Regularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.13726/) (2020)
- [TARGET: Federated Class-Continual Learning via Exemplar-Free Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.06937/) (2023)
- [PCR: Proxy-based Contrastive Replay for Online Class-Incremental Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.04408/) (2023)
- [Regularization-based Continual Learning for Anomaly Detection in Discrete Manufacturing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.00509/) (2021)
- [Federated Intrusion Detection for IoT with Heterogeneous Cohort Privacy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.09878/) (2021)
- [Provable Contrastive Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.18756/) (2024)
- [Contrastive Continual Learning with Importance Sampling and Prototype-Instance Relation Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.04599/) (2024)
- [PCAP-Backdoor: Backdoor Poisoning Generator for Network Traffic in CPS/IoT Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.15563/) (2025)
- [On-device edge learning for IoT data streams: a survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.17788/) (2025)
- [Dynamic User-controllable Privacy-preserving Few-shot Sensing Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.03989/) (2025)
- [Dynamic Black-box Backdoor Attacks on IoT Sensory Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.14074/) (2025)
- [Log Anomaly Detection with Large Language Models via Knowledge-Enriched Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.11997/) (2025)
- [Continual Contrastive Learning on Tabular Data with Out of Distribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.15089/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Backdoor Attacks on Contrastive Continual Learning for IoT Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.13062/) (2026)
- [CFD-HAR: User-controllable Privacy through Conditional Feature Disentanglement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.11526/) (2026)
- [Continual Backdoor Training in IoT/CPS](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.14987/) (2026)
- [CLIP-guided Diffusion Model for Backdoor Generation in Sensor-based Human Activity Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.22837/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Internet of Things (IoT) deployments operate in nonstationary, dynamic environments where factors such as sensor drift, evolving user behavior, and heterogeneous user privacy requirements can affect application utility. Continual learning (CL) addresses this by adapting models over time without catastrophic forgetting. Meanwhile, contrastive learning has emerged as a powerful representation-learning paradigm that improves robustness and sample efficiency in a self-supervised manner. This paper reviews the usage of contrastive continual learning (CCL) for IoT, connecting algorithmic design (replay, regularization, distillation, prompts) with IoT system realities (TinyML constraints, intermittent connectivity, privacy). We present a unifying problem formulation, derive common objectives that blend contrastive and distillation losses, propose an IoT-oriented reference architecture for on-device, edge, and cloud-based CCL, and provide guidance on evaluation protocols and metrics. Finally, we highlight open unique challenges with respect to the IoT domain, such as spanning tabular and streaming IoT data, concept drift, federated settings, and energy-aware training.