English

Partial Model Sharing Improves Byzantine Resilience in Federated Conformal Prediction

Machine Learning 2026-05-13 v1 Signal Processing Probability Applications

Abstract

We propose a Byzantine-resilient federated conformal prediction (FCP) method that leverages partial model sharing, where only a subset of model parameters is exchanged each round. Unlike existing robust FCP approaches that primarily harden the calibration stage, our method protects both the federated training and conformal calibration phases. During training, partial sharing inherently restricts the attack surface and attenuates poisoned updates while reducing communication. During calibration, clients compress their non-conformity scores into histogram-based characterization vectors, enabling the server to detect Byzantine clients via distance-based maliciousness scores and to estimate the conformal quantile using only benign contributors. Experiments across diverse Byzantine attack scenarios show that the proposed method achieves closer-to-nominal coverage with substantially tighter prediction intervals than standard FCP, establishing a robust and communication-efficient approach to federated uncertainty quantification.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.11684,
  title  = {Partial Model Sharing Improves Byzantine Resilience in Federated Conformal Prediction},
  author = {Ehsan Lari and Reza Arablouei and Stefan Werner},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.11684},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

5 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for presentation at the 34th European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO 2026) in Bruges, Belgium

R2 v1 2026-07-22T07:06:50.551Z