提升多步时间序列预测的置信区间精度,同时保证覆盖率。
Optimization-based Online Conformal Prediction for Multi-step Forecasting
- 通过跨步优化在线共形预测,联合建模多步预测分布。
- 在真实数据集上实现目标覆盖率,且预测区间更窄,长期损失更低。
- 适合需要精准不确定性量化的时间序列任务,如自动驾驶与气候预测。
共形预测(CP)提供无需分布假设的覆盖率保证,适用于时间序列不确定性量化。然而,现有方法在多步预测中面临挑战:要么独立校准各步,忽略时间相关性;要么强制同时覆盖,导致置信区间过于保守。本文提出O$^2$CP:基于优化的在线共形预测框架,为广泛在线CP方法引入跨步优化,同时保持长期覆盖率。我们首先刻画该类方法,证明只要每一步的控制变量落在围绕方法名义输出的可接受集合内,长期覆盖率即可保持。基于此,O$^2$CP采用两层设计:第一层从在线更新中构建这些可接受集合,第二层在集合内进行跨步约束优化,联合建模多步分布以最小化用户指定目标。在自动驾驶、气候预测和公共卫生等真实数据集上的大量实验表明,O$^2$CP持续优于现有基线,在保持目标覆盖率的同时显著缩小预测区间,并降低长期后悔值。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Conformal prediction (CP) provides distribution-free coverage guarantees, making it well suited for uncertainty quantification in time series forecasting. However, existing methods often struggle with multi-step settings: they either calibrate horizons independently---ignoring temporal correlations---or enforce strict simultaneous coverage, resulting in overly conservative intervals. In this work, we propose O$^2$CP: Optimization-Based Online Conformal Prediction, a framework that augments a broad family of online CP methods with cross-horizon optimization while preserving their long-term coverage guarantees. We first characterize this family of methods, showing that long-term coverage is preserved as long as, at each forecast horizon, the selected control variable remains within an admissible set around the method's nominal output. Building on this result, O$^2$CP uses a two-layer design: the first layer constructs these admissible sets from the underlying online CP updates, and the second performs constrained optimization across horizons within them, jointly modeling the cross-horizon distributions to minimize a user-specified objective. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets---including autonomous driving, climate forecasting, and public health---demonstrate that O$^2$CP consistently outperforms state-of-the-art baselines, achieving target coverage with significantly sharper prediction intervals and reduced regret over long horizons.
Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。