S-VOTE: Similarity-based Voting for Client Selection in Decentralized Federated Learning

TL;DR

S-VOTE is a voting-based client selection method for decentralized federated learning that improves model performance, reduces communication costs, and saves energy in non-IID data environments.

Contribution

This paper introduces S-VOTE, a novel adaptive client selection mechanism that enhances resource efficiency and model accuracy in decentralized federated learning with heterogeneous data.

Findings

Achieves up to 21% lower communication costs

Speeds up convergence by 4-6%

Reduces energy consumption by 14-24%

Abstract

Decentralized Federated Learning (DFL) enables collaborative, privacy-preserving model training without relying on a central server. This decentralized approach reduces bottlenecks and eliminates single points of failure, enhancing scalability and resilience. However, DFL also introduces challenges such as suboptimal models with non-IID data distributions, increased communication overhead, and resource usage. Thus, this work proposes S-VOTE, a voting-based client selection mechanism that optimizes resource usage and enhances model performance in federations with non-IID data conditions. S-VOTE considers an adaptive strategy for spontaneous local training that addresses participation imbalance, allowing underutilized clients to contribute without significantly increasing resource costs. Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets demonstrate the S-VOTE effectiveness. More in detail, it achieves lower communication costs by up to 21%, 4-6% faster convergence, and improves local performance by 9-17% compared to baseline methods in some configurations, all while achieving a 14-24% energy consumption reduction. These results highlight the potential of S-VOTE to address DFL challenges in heterogeneous environments.