Multimodal Federated Learning: A Survey through the Lens of Different FL Paradigms

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Peng, Yuanzhe, Bian, Jieming, Wang, Lei, Huang, Yin, Xu, Jie
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Peng, Yuanzhe
Bian, Jieming
Wang, Lei
Huang, Yin
Xu, Jie
author_facet Peng, Yuanzhe
Bian, Jieming
Wang, Lei
Huang, Yin
Xu, Jie
contents Multimodal Federated Learning (MFL) lies at the intersection of two pivotal research areas: leveraging complementary information from multiple modalities to improve downstream inference performance and enabling distributed training to enhance efficiency and preserve privacy. Despite the growing interest in MFL, there is currently no comprehensive taxonomy that organizes MFL through the lens of different Federated Learning (FL) paradigms. This perspective is important because multimodal data introduces distinct challenges across various FL settings. These challenges, including modality heterogeneity, privacy heterogeneity, and communication inefficiency, are fundamentally different from those encountered in traditional unimodal or non-FL scenarios. In this paper, we systematically examine MFL within the context of three major FL paradigms: horizontal FL (HFL), vertical FL (VFL), and hybrid FL. For each paradigm, we present the problem formulation, review representative training algorithms, and highlight the most prominent challenge introduced by multimodal data in distributed settings. We also discuss open challenges and provide insights for future research. By establishing this taxonomy, we aim to uncover the novel challenges posed by multimodal data from the perspective of different FL paradigms and to offer a new lens through which to understand and advance the development of MFL.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_21792
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Multimodal Federated Learning: A Survey through the Lens of Different FL Paradigms
Peng, Yuanzhe
Bian, Jieming
Wang, Lei
Huang, Yin
Xu, Jie
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Multimodal Federated Learning (MFL) lies at the intersection of two pivotal research areas: leveraging complementary information from multiple modalities to improve downstream inference performance and enabling distributed training to enhance efficiency and preserve privacy. Despite the growing interest in MFL, there is currently no comprehensive taxonomy that organizes MFL through the lens of different Federated Learning (FL) paradigms. This perspective is important because multimodal data introduces distinct challenges across various FL settings. These challenges, including modality heterogeneity, privacy heterogeneity, and communication inefficiency, are fundamentally different from those encountered in traditional unimodal or non-FL scenarios. In this paper, we systematically examine MFL within the context of three major FL paradigms: horizontal FL (HFL), vertical FL (VFL), and hybrid FL. For each paradigm, we present the problem formulation, review representative training algorithms, and highlight the most prominent challenge introduced by multimodal data in distributed settings. We also discuss open challenges and provide insights for future research. By establishing this taxonomy, we aim to uncover the novel challenges posed by multimodal data from the perspective of different FL paradigms and to offer a new lens through which to understand and advance the development of MFL.
title Multimodal Federated Learning: A Survey through the Lens of Different FL Paradigms
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.21792