Design of Federated Learning and Data Sharing System for Environmental Information System in Multi-Campus Environment
Main Article Content
Abstract
In multi-campus environmental information systems, data silos and privacy risks caused by raw-data sharing hinder collaboration. Similar challenges appear in distributed engineering monitoring, including electromagnetic environmental sensing, where multiple sites must share knowledge without exposing local data or infrastructure details. This paper designs a cross-campus collaborative modeling system using federated learning and differential privacy. The system adopts a hierarchical federated architecture: campuses train models locally and upload only model parameters with calibrated noise to a central server. Dynamic weighting and contribution evaluation mechanisms are integrated to improve generalization under non-IID data distribution while preserving efficient, privacy-protected data collaboration. A hybrid neural network combining one-dimensional convolutional neural networks, gated recurrent units, and an attention mechanism is constructed for environmental time-series characteristics, and gradient-level differential privacy is applied. Experiments using air-quality data from four campuses show that the federated model achieves an 18.1% lower mean absolute error for PM2.5 prediction than independent models. Communication overhead is reduced by 99.1%, and in extreme non-IID scenarios, the error is further reduced by 9.9% compared with standard FedAvg. The results demonstrate improved collaborative modeling for distributed environmental data and provide a transferable architecture for privacy-preserving sensor networks, including electromagnetic monitoring and wireless infrastructure assessment.
Downloads
Article Details

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
References
J. Liu, J. Huang, Y. Zhou, X. Li, S. Ji, H. Xiong, et al., “From distributed machine learning to federated learning: A survey,” Knowledge and information systems, vol. 64, no. 4, pp. 885-917, 2022, doi: 10.1007/s10115-022-01664-x.
D. C. Nguyen, M. Ding, P. N. Pathirana, A. Seneviratne, J. Li, and H. V. Poor, “Federated learning for internet of things: A comprehensive survey,” IEEE communications & tutorials, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 1622-1658, 2021, doi: 10.1109/COMST.2021.3075439.
D. C. Nguyen, M. Ding, Q. V. Pham, P. N. Pathirana, L. B. Le, A. Seneviratne, et al., “Federated learning meets blockchain in edge computing: Opportunities and challenges,” IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 8, no. 16, pp. 12806-12825, 2021, doi: 10.1109/JIOT.2021.3072611.
J. Wen, Z. Zhang, Y. Lan, Z. Cui, J. Cai, and W. Zhang, “A survey on federated learning: challenges and applications,” International journal of machine learning and cybernetics, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 513-535, 2023, doi: 10.1007/s13042-022-01647-y.
Q. Li, Z. Wen, Z. Wu, S. Hu, N. Wang, Y. Li, et al., “A survey on federated learning systems: Vision, hype and reality for data privacy and protection,” IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 3347-3366, 2021, doi: 10.1109/TKDE.2021.3124599.
X. Hu, R. Li, L. Wang, Y. Ning, and K. Ota, “A data sharing scheme based on federated learning in IoV,” IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 72, no. 9, pp. 11644-11656, 2023, doi: 10.1109/TVT.2023.3266100.
X. Li, L. Cheng, C. Sun, K. Y. Lam, X. Wang, and F. Li, “Federated-learning-empowered collaborative data sharing for vehicular edge networks,” IEEE network, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 116-124, 2021, doi: 10.1109/MNET.011.2000558.
Y. Chen, J. Li, F. Wang, K. Yue, Y. Li, B. Xing, et al., “DS2PM: A data-sharing privacy protection model based on blockchain and federated learning,” IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 10, no. 14, pp. 12112-12125, 2021, doi: 10.1109/JIOT.2021.3134755.
L. Yin, J. Feng, H. Xun, Z. Sun, and X. Cheng, “A privacy-preserving federated learning for multiparty data sharing in social IoTs,” IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 2706-2718, 2021, doi: 10.1109/TNSE.2021.3074185.
B. Jia, X. Zhang, J. Liu, Y. Zhang, K. Huang, and Y. Liang, “Blockchain-enabled federated learning data protection aggregation scheme with differential privacy and homomorphic encryption in IIoT,” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, vol. 18, no. 6, pp. 4049-4058, 2021, doi: 10.1109/TII.2021.3085960.
Z. Lian, Q. Zeng, W. Wang, T. R. Gadekallu, and C. Su, “Blockchain-based two-stage federated learning with non-IID data in IoMT system,” IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 1701-1710, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TCSS.2022.3216802.
Z. Zhao, C. Feng, W. Hong, J. Jiang, C. Jia, T. Q. Quek, et al., “Federated learning with non-IID data in wireless networks,” IEEE Transactions on Wireless communications, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 1927-1942, 2021, doi: 10.1109/TWC.2021.3108197.
H. Zheng, M. Gao, Z. Chen, and X. Feng, “A distributed hierarchical deep computation model for federated learning in edge computing,” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, vol. 17, no. 12, pp. 7946-7956, 2021, doi: 10.1109/TII.2021.3065719.
Z. Wang, H. Xu, J. Liu, Y. Xu, H. Huang, and Y. Zhao, “Accelerating federated learning with cluster construction and hierarchical aggregation,” IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, vol. 22, no. 7, pp. 3805-3822, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TMC.2022.3147792.
X. Tu, K. Zhu, N. C. Luong, D. Niyato, Y. Zhang, and J. Li, “Incentive mechanisms for federated learning: From economic and game theoretic perspective,” IEEE transactions on cognitive communications and networking, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 1566-1593, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TCCN.2022.3177522.
Y. Zhao and J. Chen, “A survey on differential privacy for unstructured data content,” ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), vol. 54, no. 10s, pp. 1-28, 2022, doi: 10.1145/3490237.
B. Jiang, J. Li, G. Yue, and H. Song, “Differential privacy for industrial internet of things: Opportunities, applications, and challenges,” IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 8, no. 13, pp. 10430-10451, 2021, doi: 10.1109/JIOT.2021.3057419.
B. Wang, Y. Chen, H. Jiang, and Z. Zhao, “Ppefl: Privacy-preserving edge federated learning with local differential privacy,” IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 10, no. 17, pp. 15488-15500, 2023, doi: 10.1109/JIOT.2023.3264259.
R. Hu, Y. Guo, and Y. Gong, “Federated learning with sparsified model perturbation: Improving accuracy under client-level differential privacy,” IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, vol. 23, no. 8, pp. 8242-8255, 2023, doi: 10.1109/TMC.2023.3343288.
T. Sun, D. Li, and B. Wang, “Decentralized federated averaging,” IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, vol. 45, no. 4, pp. 4289-4301, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TPAMI.2022.3196503.
J. Liu, J. Lou, L. Xiong, J. Liu, and X. Meng, “Projected federated averaging with heterogeneous differential privacy,” Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment; 16–20 August 2021; Copenhagen, Denmark 2021; 15(4):828-840, doi: 10.14778/3503585.3503592.
P. V. Dantas, W. Sabino da Silva Jr, L. C. Cordeiro, L. C. Cordeiro, and C. B. Carvalho, “A comprehensive review of model compression techniques in machine learning,” Applied Intelligence, vol. 54, no. 22, pp. 11804-11844, 2024, doi: 10.1007/s10489-024-05747-w.
C. Y. Lin, V. Kostina, and B. Hassibi, “Differentially quantized gradient methods,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 68, no. 9, pp. 6078-6097, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TIT.2022.3171173.
S. Y. Chang and H. C. Wu, “Tensor quantization: High-dimensional data compression,” IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, vol. 32, no. 8, pp. 5566-5580, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TCSVT.2022.3145341.
M. Ye, X. Fang, B. Du, P. C. Yuen, and D. Tao, “Heterogeneous federated learning: State-of-the-art and research challenges,” ACM Computing Surveys, vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 1-44, 2023, doi: 10.1145/3625558.
Y. Liao, Y. Wang, X. Zeng, M. Wu, and X. Qing, “Multiscale 1-DCNN for damage localization and quantification using guided waves with novel data fusion technique and new self-attention module,” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 492-502, 2023, doi: 10.1109/TII.2023.3268442.
S. Zhang, J. Lu, and H. Zhao, “Deep network approximation: Beyond relu to diverse activation functions,” Journal of Machine Learning Research, vol. 25, no. 35, pp. 1-39, 2024, doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2307.06555.
S. Kılıçarslan, K. Adem, and M. Çelik, “An overview of the activation functions used in deep learning algorithms,” Journal of New Results in Science, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 75-88, 2021, doi: 10.54187/jnrs.1011739.
J. Xie, S. Liu, J. Chen, and J. Jia, “Huber loss based distributed robust learning algorithm for random vector functional-link network,” Artificial Intelligence Review, vol. 56, no. 8, pp. 8197-8218, 2023, doi: 10.1007/s10462-022-10362-7.
W. Sun, K. Wang, M. Wang, and Y. Song, “L21 Norm Regularization ELM with p-Huber Loss Function for Multitarget Regression,” IAENG International Journal of Applied Mathematics, vol. 55, no. 8, pp. 2570-2580, 2025, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2018.2887260.
J. Pei, W. Liu, J. Li, L. Wang, and C. Liu, “A review of federated learning methods in heterogeneous scenarios,” IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, vol. 70, no. 3, pp. 5983-5999, 2024, doi: 10.1109/TCE.2024.3385440.
K. Chen, Y. Gao, H. Waris, W. Liu, and F. Lombardi, “Approximate softmax functions for energy-efficient deep neural networks,” IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 4-16, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TVLSI.2022.3224011.
Y. Zhou, Q. Ye, and J. Lv, “Communication-efficient federated learning with compensated overlap-fedavg,” IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 192-205, 2021, doi: 10.1109/TPDS.2021.3090331.
L. Su, J. Xu, and P. Yang, “A non-parametric view of fedavg and fedprox: Beyond stationary points,” Journal of Machine Learning Research, vol. 24, no. 203, pp. 1-48, 2023, doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2106.15216.
J. Dong, A. Roth, and W. J. Su, “Gaussian differential privacy,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B: Statistical Methodology, vol. 84, no. 1, pp. 3-37, 2022, doi: 10.1111/rssb.12454.