Federated Learning for edge computing : Real-Time Object Detection

Abstract: In domains where data is sensitive or private, there is a great value in methods that can learn in a distributed manner without the data ever leaving the local devices. Federated Learning (FL) has recently emerged as a promising solution to collaborative machine learning challenges while maintaining data privacy. With FL, multiple entities, whether cross-device or cross-silo, can jointly train models without compromising the locality or privacy of their data. Instead of moving data to a central storage system or cloud for model training, code is moved to the data owners’ local sites, and incremental local updates are combined into a global model. In this way FL enhances data pri-vacy and reduces the probability of eavesdropping to a certain extent. In this thesis we have utilized the means of Federated Learning into a Real-Time Object Detection (RTOB) model in order to investigate its performance and privacy awareness towards a traditional centralized ML environment. Several object detection models have been built us-ing YOLO framework and training with a custom dataset for indoor object detection. Local tests have been performed and the most opti-mal model has been chosen by evaluating training and testing metrics and afterwards using NVIDIA Jetson Nano external device to train the model and integrate into a Federated Learning environment using an open-source FL framework. Experiments has been conducted through the path in order to choose the optimal YOLO model (YOLOv8) and the best fitted FL framework to our study (FEDn).We observed a gradual enhancement in balancing the APC factors (Accuracy-Privacy-Communication) as we transitioned from basic lo-cal models to the YOLOv8 implementation within the FEDn system, both locally and on the SSC Cloud production environment. Although we encountered technical challenges deploying the YOLOv8-FEDn system on the SSC Cloud, preventing it from reaching a finalized state, our preliminary findings indicate its potential as a robust foundation for FL applications in RTOB models at the edge.