ArtFL: Exploiting Data Resolution in Federated Learning for Dynamic Runtime Inference via Multi-Scale Training

Federated Learning (FL) has emerged as a prominent paradigm for distributed machine learning, crucial for mission-critical applications such as autonomous driving and smart health. However, existing FL systems have not adequately addressed the dynamic real-time requirements of these applications due to stringent inference deadlines and resource limitations on edge devices. In this paper, we propose ArtFL, a novel federated learning system designed to support dynamic runtime inference through multi-scale training. The key idea of ArtFL is to utilize the data resolution, i.e., frame resolution of videos, as a knob to accommodate dynamic inference latency requirements. Specifically, we initially propose data-utility-based multi-scale training, allowing the trained model to process data of varying resolutions during inference. Subsequently, we introduce an innovative strategy for frame resolution selection in inference, based on the similarity of adjacent frames. Finally, leveraging latency-based dynamic data dropping, we propose a systematic scheme to reduce the overall training time by shortening the waiting time in FL. For evaluation, we build two real-world FL testbeds for smart vehicles and healthcare applications, utilizing a heterogeneous edge platform. Extensive experiments across our testbeds and three public datasets show that ArtFL outperforms state-of-the-art baselines in overall accuracy and system performance up to 36.36% and 47.81%, respectively. A demo video of ArtFL on our smart vehicle testbed is available at https://youtu.be/eeK6yRVEG3U, and our code is available at https://github.com/siyang-jiang/ArtFL.git.CCS CONCEPTS• Computing methodologies → Machine learning.