# Domain-Skewed Federated Learning with Feature Decoupling and Calibration

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.14238 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.14238/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 40 of its 57 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 15 Mar 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 40)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Grad-CAM: Visual Explanations from Deep Networks via Gradient-based Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02391/) (2016)
- [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)
- [Federated Learning: Challenges, Methods, and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07873/) (2019)
- [Moment Matching for Multi-Source Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.01754/) (2018)
- [On the Convergence of FedAvg on Non-IID Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.02189/) (2019)
- [Deeper, Broader and Artier Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.03077/) (2017)
- [Model-Contrastive Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.16257/) (2021)
- [Personalized Federated Learning with Moreau Envelopes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.08848/) (2020)
- [Learning Sparse Neural Networks through L0 Regularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.01312/) (2017)
- [Federated Learning on Non-IID Data Silos: An Experimental Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.02079/) (2021)
- [Understanding the Behaviour of Contrastive Loss](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.09740/) (2020)
- [Fair Resource Allocation in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.10497/) (2019)
- [Federated Learning on Non-IID Data: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.06843/) (2021)
- [FedDC: Federated Learning with Non-IID Data via Local Drift Decoupling and Correction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11751/) (2022)
- [FedALA: Adaptive Local Aggregation for Personalized Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.01197/) (2022)
- [Disentangled Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.11695/) (2022)
- [Learning Disentangled Representations for Recommendation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.14238/) (2019)
- [Federated Learning for Generalization, Robustness, Fairness: A Survey and Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.06750/) (2023)
- [Rethinking Differentiable Search for Mixed-Precision Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.05795/) (2020)
- [Gait Recognition via Disentangled Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.04925/) (2019)
- [FedDisco: Federated Learning with Discrepancy-Aware Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.19229/) (2023)
- [HarmoFL: Harmonizing Local and Global Drifts in Federated Learning on Heterogeneous Medical Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10775/) (2021)
- [FedTGP: Trainable Global Prototypes with Adaptive-Margin-Enhanced Contrastive Learning for Data and Model Heterogeneity in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.03230/) (2024)
- [An Aggregation-Free Federated Learning for Tackling Data Heterogeneity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.18962/) (2024)
- [Leveraging sparse and shared feature activations for disentangled representation learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07939/) (2023)
- [Relaxed Contrastive Learning for Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.04928/) (2024)
- [DiPrompT: Disentangled Prompt Tuning for Multiple Latent Domain Generalization in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.08506/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Federated learning (FL) allows distributed clients to collaboratively train a global model in a privacy-preserving manner. However, one major challenge is domain skew, where clients' data originating from diverse domains may hinder the aggregated global model from learning a consistent representation space, resulting in poor generalizable ability in multiple domains. In this paper, we argue that the domain skew is reflected in the domain-specific biased features of each client, causing the local model's representations to collapse into a narrow low-dimensional subspace. We then propose Federated Feature Decoupling and Calibration (F2DC), which liberates valuable class-relevant information by calibrating the domain-specific biased features, enabling more consistent representations across domains. A novel component, Domain Feature Decoupler (DFD), is first introduced in F2DC to determine the robustness of each feature unit, thereby separating the local features into domain-robust features and domain-related features. A Domain Feature Corrector (DFC) is further proposed to calibrate these domain-related features by explicitly linking discriminative signals, capturing additional class-relevant clues that complement the domain-robust features. Finally, a domain-aware aggregation of the local models is performed to promote consensus among clients. Empirical results on three popular multi-domain datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed F2DC and the contributions of its two modules. Code is available at https://github.com/mala-lab/F2DC.