Decentralized AI

This is the repository for the overarching strategic program Decentralized AI.
So far, this repository contains the following sub-folders:

• common: common ROS mesages, utils, and packages used by both the gossip learning and the federeated learning testbed.

• fed_lr_ros: a testbed for traning TensorFlow models in federated learning settings using ROS.

• gossip_lr_ros: a general testbed for traning TensorFlow models in gossip learning settings using ROS.

• tf_privacy: a rudimentary tutorial for using differential privacy together with TensorFlow 2.x.

Dependencies

Common for all the packages in this repository is the use of TensorFlow for defining machine learning models (using TensorFlow 2.x, i.e., no use of traditional tf.Estimators, etc., whatsoever!). An installing of TensorFlow (>= 2.0) is, therefore, a pre-requisite. You can find detailed instructions here. For better performance, it is also recommended to install TensorFlow with GPU support (detailed instructions on how to do this are available in the TensorFlow installation documentation). However, in most cases, TensorFlow can simply be installed by:

pip install tensorflow

...or for GPU support:

pip install tensorflow-gpu

As the majority of all the packages in this repository use ROS, it is also a pre-requisite to install basic ROS packages. Detailed instructions for installing ROS can be found here. However, a basic ROS installation for Ubuntu LTS (20.04) can, simply, be installed through standard package manager by the following steps:

1. Add software from packages.ros.org to the package:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'

2. Add authentication keys:

sudo apt install curl # if you haven't already installed curl
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/ros.asc | sudo apt-key add -

3. Install basic ROS packages:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ros-noetic-ros-base

4. Setup ROS environment:

source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.bash

5. Install dependencies for building packages and initialize rosdep:

sudo apt install python3-rosdep python3-rosinstall python3-rosinstall-generator python3-wstool build-essential python3-rosdep
sudo rosdep init
rosdep update

Installation

Provided that all dependencies above have been installed, the packages in this repository can be installed through a ROS catkin workspace. First, make sure that the ROS environment is setup correctly:

source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.bash

Next, create and build a catkin workspace:

mkdir -p ~/ai_sweden_ws/src
cd ~/ai_sweden_ws/
catkin_make

Finally, change the ROS environment to the newly created workspace, clone the code the code from this repository, and compile all packages:

source devel/setup.bash
cd src
git clone https://github.com/aidotse/DecentralizedAI.git
cd ..
catkin_make

Installation done!

From hereon, see each separate package for usage.

Questions?

Q: What is differential privacy?
A: See the tutorial tf_privacy.

Q: What is ROS?
A: “The Robot Operating System (ROS) is a flexible framework for writing robot software. It is a collection of tools, libraries, and conventions that aim to simplify the task of creating complex and robust robot behavior across a wide variety of robotic platforms.” -- ROS Webpage