{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,10]],"date-time":"2026-03-10T18:48:58Z","timestamp":1773168538167,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":29,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,17]],"date-time":"2025-09-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1758067200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"College of Arts, Technology and Environment at the University of the West of England"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["BDCC"],"abstract":"<jats:p>With the evolution of 5G edge computing networks, privacy-aware applications are gaining significant attention due to their decentralised processing capabilities. However, these networks face substantial challenges to ensure privacy and security, specifically in a Federated Learning (FL) setup, where adversarial attacks can potentially influence the model integrity. Conventional privacy-preserving FL mechanisms are often susceptible to such attacks, leading to degraded model performance and severe security vulnerabilities. To address this issue, we propose FL with adversarial optimisation framework to improve adversarial robustness in 5G edge computing networks while ensuring privacy preservation. The proposed framework considers two models; a classifier model and an adversary model, where the classifier model is integrated with the adversary model, trained jointly considering Fast Gradient Sign Method (FGSM) for generation of adversarial perturbations. This adversarial optimisation enhances classifier\u2019s resilience to attacks, thereby improving both privacy preservation and model accuracy. Experimental analysis reveals that the proposed model achieves up to 99.44% accuracy on adversarial test data, while improving robustness and sustaining high precision and recall across varying client scenarios. The experimental results further ensure the effectiveness of the proposed model in terms of communication efficiency and computational efficiency while reducing inference time and FLOPs making it ideal for secure 5G edge computing applications.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/bdcc9090238","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,17]],"date-time":"2025-09-17T14:10:19Z","timestamp":1758118219000},"page":"238","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Federated Learning with Adversarial Optimisation for Secure and Efficient 5G Edge Computing Networks"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"9","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1258-5838","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Saniya","family":"Zafar","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Computer Science Research Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7931-658X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jonathan","family":"White","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Computer Science Research Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3460-5609","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Phil","family":"Legg","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Computer Science Research Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"127276","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2019.2938534","article-title":"Edge computing in 5G: A review","volume":"7","author":"Hassan","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2176","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2024.3352910","article-title":"Federated learning-empowered mobile network management for 5G and beyond networks: From access to core","volume":"26","author":"Lee","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. 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