FedMAC: Tackling Partial-Modality Missing in Federated Learning with Cross-Modal Aggregation and Contrastive Regularization

Manh Duong Nguyen, Trung Thanh Nguyen, Huy Hieu Pham, Trong Nghia Hoang, Phi Le Nguyen, Thanh Trung Huynh

Abstract: Federated Learning (FL) is a method for training machine learning models using distributed data sources. It ensures privacy by allowing clients to collaboratively learn a shared global model while storing their data locally. However, a significant challenge arises when dealing with missing modalities in clients’ datasets, where certain features or modalities are unavailable or incomplete, leading to heterogeneous data distribution. While previous studies have addressed the issue of complete-modality missing1, they fail to tackle partial-modality missing2 on account of severe heterogeneity among clients at an instance level, where the pattern of missing data can vary significantly from one sample to another. To tackle this challenge, this study proposes a novel framework named FedMAC, designed to address multimodality missing under conditions of partial-modality missing in FL. Additionally, to avoid trivial aggregation of multi-modal features, we introduce contrastive-based regularization to impose additional constraints on the latent representation space. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of FedMAC across various client configurations with statistical heterogeneity, outperforming baseline methods by up to 26% in severe missing scenarios, highlighting its potential as a solution for the challenge of partially missing modalities in federated systems.1Complete missing is when one or more modalities are absent in server and clients’ data.2Partial missing is when only parts of one or more modalities are absent in server and clients’ data