Multi-step prediction of time series with random missing data

Multi-step prediction is still an open challenge in time series prediction. Moreover, practical observations are often incomplete because of sensor failure or outliers causing missing data. Therefore, it is very important to carry out research on multi-step prediction of time series with random missing data. Based on nonlinear filters and multilayer perceptron artificial neural networks (ANNs), one novel approach for multi-step prediction of time series with random missing data is proposed in the study. With the basis of original nonlinear filters which do not consider the missing data, first we obtain the generalized nonlinear filters by using a sequence of independent Bernoulli random variables to model random interruptions. Then the multi-step prediction model of time series with random missing data, which can be fit for the online training of generalized nonlinear filters, is established by using the ANN’s weights to present the state vector and the ANN’s outputs to present the observation equation. The performance between the original nonlinear filters based ANN model for multi-step prediction of time series with missing data and the generalized nonlinear filters based ANN model for multi-step prediction of time series with missing data is compared. Numerical results have demonstrated that the generalized nonlinear filters based ANN are proportionally superior to the original nonlinear filters based ANN for multi-step prediction of time series with missing data.