Federated edge learning with misaligned over-the-air computation
File(s)SGL_TWC21.pdf (2.81 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Shao, Yulin
Gunduz, Deniz
Liew, Soung Chang
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Over-the-air computation (OAC) is a promising technique to realize fast model aggregation in the uplink of federated edge learning (FEEL). OAC, however, hinges on accurate channel-gain precoding and strict synchronization among edge devices, which are challenging in practice. As such, how to design the maximum likelihood (ML) estimator in the presence of residual channel-gain mismatch and asynchronies is an open problem. To fill this gap, this paper formulates the problem of misaligned OAC for FEEL and puts forth a whitened matched filtering and sampling scheme to obtain oversampled, but independent samples from the misaligned and overlapped signals. Given the whitened samples, a sum-product ML (SP-ML) estimator and an aligned-sample estimator are devised to estimate the arithmetic sum of the transmitted symbols. In particular, the computational complexity of our SP-ML estimator is linear in the packet length, and hence is significantly lower than the conventional ML estimator. Extensive simulations on the test accuracy versus the average received energy per symbol to noise power spectral density ratio (EsN0) yield two main results: 1) In the low EsN0 regime, the aligned-sample estimator can achieve superior test accuracy provided that the phase misalignment is not severe. In contrast, the ML estimator does not work well due to the error propagation and noise enhancement in the estimation process. 2) In the high EsN0 regime, the ML estimator attains the optimal learning performance regardless of the severity of phase misalignment. On the other hand, the aligned-sample estimator suffers from a test-accuracy loss caused by phase misalignment.
Date Issued
2022-06
Date Acceptance
2021-11-01
Citation
IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 2022, 21 (6), pp.1-1
ISSN
1536-1276
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Start Page
1
End Page
1
Journal / Book Title
IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications
Volume
21
Issue
6
Copyright Statement
© 2021 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information
Sponsor
Commission of the European Communities
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Identifier
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9614039
Grant Number
677854
EP/T023600/1
Subjects
Networking & Telecommunications
0805 Distributed Computing
0906 Electrical and Electronic Engineering
1005 Communications Technologies
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-11-12