提出可闭式聚合的联邦强化学习方法,解决参数平均不一致问题。
FedQHD: Closed-Form Function-Space Federated Reinforcement Learning
- 用超维编码器+线性读出层,使Q函数线性可叠加
- 在4个连续状态控制任务中性能优于或持平基线
- 适合异构模型、低通信开销场景,理论分析可解释误差来源
联邦强化学习使分布式智能体在不交换原始轨迹的情况下协作优化策略或价值估计。然而,传统的FedAvg参数平均方法不具备函数空间一致性:当客户端使用异构编码器或相同的非线性网络时,平均后的参数并不对应于各客户端价值函数在公共函数空间中的加权平均。本文提出FedQHD,一种基于超维(随机特征)状态编码器与线性读出层的联邦Q学习方法,使价值函数在状态上为非线性但在可训练参数上为线性,从而实现闭式聚合。在共享编码器下,函数空间共识更新精确等同于本地读出矩阵的加权平均;在异构编码器下,服务器通过在共享锚点状态集上平均客户端Q值构建全局教师,并由各客户端通过单次岭投影将该教师编译到本地表示中。我们形式化了‘联邦差距’——即在异构客户端表示中编译联邦教师所引入的误差,相对于客户端专属最优投影的误差。证明该差距可分解为子空间错位、锚点集条件性和正则化偏差三部分。进一步发现,当锚点数量 $m \geq D_i$ 时进入良好条件区域,此时差距仅与编码器异质性下界成倍数关系。在四个连续状态、离散动作控制基准上,FedQHD性能匹配或超越传统基线与基于知识蒸馏的方法,且计算开销显著更低,实证结果也验证了联邦差距随编码器维度变化的理论预测。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Federated reinforcement learning enables decentralized agents to collaboratively improve policies or value estimates without exchanging raw trajectories. However, FedAvg-style parameter averaging is not function-space consistent: when clients use heterogeneous encoders or even identical nonlinear networks, averaged parameters need not correspond to the weighted average of client value functions in any common function space. We propose FedQHD, a federated Q-learning method using hyperdimensional (random-feature) state encoders with a linear readout, so that Q-functions are nonlinear in state yet linear in trainable parameters. This linear structure enables closed-form aggregation. With a shared encoder, the function-space consensus update coincides exactly with weighted averaging of local readout matrices. With heterogeneous encoders, the server constructs a global teacher by averaging client Q-values on a shared anchor-state set, and each client compiles this teacher into its local representation via a single ridge projection. We formalize the federation gap -- the error incurred when compiling a federated teacher into a heterogeneous client representation -- relative to a client-specific oracle projection. We show that this gap decomposes into subspace misalignment, anchor-set conditioning, and regularization bias. We further identify the anchor-to-dimension ratio $m \geq D_i$ as the well-conditioned regime in which the gap reduces to a multiple of the encoder heterogeneity floor. On four continuous-state, discrete-action control benchmarks, FedQHD matches or outperforms FedAvg-style baselines and distillation-based alternatives while requiring substantially less computation, and the empirical dependence of the federation gap on encoder dimension matches our theoretical analysis.
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