A Lightweight Dynamic Hierarchical Neural Network Model and Learning Paradigm

In image analysis scenarios such as the Internet of Things and the metaverse, the introduction of federated learning (FL) is an effective solution to safeguard user data security and meet low‐latency requirements during the machine learning process. However, due to the constrained computational power and memory of devices, facilitating the local training of complex models becomes challenging, thereby posing a significant obstacle to the application of FL. Consequently, a lightweight dynamic hierarchical neural network model and its learning paradigm are proposed in this study. Specifically, a lightweight compression method is designed based on enlarged receptive fields and separable convolutions to reduce redundancy in convolutional layer feature maps. A dynamic model partitioning method is devised, grounded in the Q‐Learning reinforcement learning algorithm, to enable collaborative model training across multiple devices and enhance the utilization efficiency of device computing and storage resources. Furthermore, a hierarchical federated partition learning (HFSL) paradigm based on complete weight sharing is introduced to facilitate the compatibility of partitioned models with FL. Experimental results show that our lightweight model outperforms existing models in terms of accuracy, lightweight degree, and efficiency on image analysis tasks. Moreover, the proposed HFSL paradigm achieves performance comparable to centralized training.