Federated Learning and Unlearning as Enablers of Wind Turbine Digital Twins

Abstract

Abstract Real-time capable models are paramount for the successful adaptation of digital twin technology into industries such as wind energy, but high-fidelity physics-based models cannot achieve the required speed, while data-driven and hybrid methods require large amounts of training data which is typically confidential. In this work, the combination of federated learning with hybrid modeling is proposed to train fast and reliable models across multiple confidential data sets owned by different stakeholders. The approach is demonstrated on physics-guided neural networks to estimate the lift and drag of wind turbine airfoils. A scenario is devised where multiple confidential data subsets are confined to different client devices. It is shown that the physics-guided neural networks can be trained through federated learning across those devices and data subsets and that the resulting models can recover and even surpass the accuracy of a model that is trained conventionally by merging the data subsets on a single device. The presented approach is highly scalable and can be easily adapted to many other applications. This work also discusses federated unlearning methods, which allow data owners to remove all traces of a data subset used in training if they decide to revoke their contribution.