Lightweight Cluster-Based Federated Learning for Intrusion Detection in Heterogeneous IoT Networks

2026-02-13

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Distributed Machine Learning & Federated Learning
• Application Domains: Internet of Things, Sensor Networks & Smart Cities
• Humans and AI: Human-in-the-loop Machine Learning

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Federated Web and WoT systems, including distributed, federated and edge-based data processing
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Federated recommendation systems and personalization
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

Abstract

The rise of heterogeneous Internet of Things (IoT) devices has raised security concerns due to their vulnerability to cyberattacks. Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) are crucial in addressing these threats. Federated Learning (FL) offers a privacy-preserving solution, but IoT heterogeneity and limited computational resources cause increased latency and reduced performance. This paper introduces a novel approach Cluster-based federated intrusion detection with lightweight networks for heterogeneous IoT designed to address these limitations. The proposed framework utilizes a hierarchical IoT architecture that encompasses edge, fog, and cloud layers. Intrusion detection clients operate at the fog layer, leveraging federated learning to enhance data privacy and distributed processing efficiency. To enhance efficiency, the method employs the lightweight MobileNet model alongside a hybrid loss function that integrates Gumbel-SoftMax and SoftMax, optimizing resource consumption while maintaining high detection accuracy. A key feature of this approach is clustering IoT devices based on hardware similarities, enabling more efficient model training and aggregation tailored to each cluster's computational capacity. This strategy not only simplifies the complexity of managing heterogeneous data and devices but also improves scalability and overall system performance. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, extensive experiments were conducted using the ToN-IoT and CICDDoS2019 datasets. Results demonstrate that the proposed approach reduces end-to-end training time by 2.47x compared to traditional FL methods, achieves 2.16x lower testing latency, and maintains exceptionally high detection accuracy of 99.22% and 99.02% on the ToN-IoT and CICDDoS2019 datasets, respectively.

Problem

• Federated Learning
• Intrusion Detection
• Heterogeneous IoT
• Resource Constraints
• Latency

Innovation

• Cluster-based Federated Learning
• Lightweight MobileNet
• Hybrid Loss Function
• Heterogeneous IoT
• Hierarchical Architecture