Exploring the Robustness: Hierarchical Federated Learning Framework for Object Detection of UAV Cluster

The deployment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) cluster is an available solution for object detection missions. In the harsh environment, UAV cluster could suffer from some significant threats (e.g., forest fire hazards, electromagnetic interference, and ground-to-air attacks), which could lead to the destruction of UAVs and loss of data. To this end, we propose a Hierarchical Federated Learning Framework for Object Detection (HFL-OD) to enhance the robustness of UAV cluster conducting object detection missions. In HFL-OD, UAVs are grouped through a Three-Dimensional (3D) graph coloring method, and an intragroup backup mechanism is provided to prevent the data loss caused by the destruction of UAVs. Besides, a dynamic server selection mechanism deals with the potential destruction of servers (cluster server and group servers) by adaptively reassigning the server roles. To further improve the robustness and mission efficiency of UAV cluster, a two-tier federated learning framework is introduced to make a proper trade-off between object detection accuracy and communication/computational overhead. This framework is built on the concept of hierarchical federated learning by implementing both intragroup parameter aggregation and global parameter aggregation. Extensive simulations and comparisons demonstrate the superior performance of our proposed HFL-OD, i.e., the robustness of UAV cluster conducting object detection missions can be significantly improved, and the communication/computational overhead is effectively reduced.