# Air-Plan: Query-Optimized Topology Selection for Over-the-Air Decentralized Federated Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.04254 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.04254/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 15 of its 47 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 5 Jul 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [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)
- [Federated Optimization in Heterogeneous Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.06127/) (2018)
- [Can Decentralized Algorithms Outperform Centralized Algorithms? A Case Study for Decentralized Parallel Stochastic Gradient Descent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.09056/) (2017)
- [Decentralized Stochastic Optimization and Gossip Algorithms with Compressed Communication](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.00340/) (2019)
- [Broadband Analog Aggregation for Low-Latency Federated Edge Learning (Extended Version)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.11494/) (2018)
- [Federated Learning over Wireless Fading Channels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.09769/) (2019)
- [Stochastic Gradient Push for Distributed Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.10792/) (2018)
- [Decentralized Deep Learning with Arbitrary Communication Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.09356/) (2019)
- [Federated Accelerated Stochastic Gradient Descent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.08950/) (2020)
- [Optimal algorithms for smooth and strongly convex distributed optimization in networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.08704/) (2017)
- [MATCHA: Speeding Up Decentralized SGD via Matching Decomposition Sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.09435/) (2019)
- [An End-to-End Learning-based Cost Estimator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.02560/) (2019)
- [PowerGossip: Practical Low-Rank Communication Compression in Decentralized Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.01425/) (2020)
- [A Distributed Algorithm for Computing a Common Fixed Point of a Family of Paracontractions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.01483/) (2016)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Over-the-air (OTA) aggregation exploits the superposition property of wireless multiple-access channels to aggregate model updates from multiple devices within a single transmission slot, significantly reducing communication latency. While OTA computation has been extensively studied for centralized federated learning (FL), its integration with decentralized federated learning (DFL) remains largely unexplored, and principled communication topology selection is absent from existing work. We present AIRPLAN, a query-optimized topology selection framework for Over-the-Air Decentralized Federated Learning (OTA-DFL). AIRPLAN establishes a formal equivalence between OTA-DFL and distributed query processing, enabling topology selection to be formulated as a cost-based query optimization problem. Using privacy-preserving Count-Min Sketch statistics, AIRPLAN estimates workload characteristics, evaluates a graph-aware cost model across candidate topologies, and selects the communication graph that minimizes training cost while satisfying a target accuracy SLA. Experiments across five graph families, three vision benchmarks, four client scales, and multiple SNR settings show that AIRPLAN matches the oracle-optimal topology in 91.4% of workloads while introducing less than 1.8% overhead. We further derive theoretical error bounds for topology-aware sparsification, demonstrating that well-connected topologies better tolerate aggressive compression. AIRPLAN introduces a systems-oriented perspective that bridges wireless federated learning and distributed query optimization.