Trade-off Clustering Approach for Multivariate Multi-Step Ahead Time-Series Forecasting
Résumé
Time-Series forecasting has gained a lot of steam in recent years. With the advent of Big Data, a consid-
erable amount of data is more available across multiple fields, thus providing an opportunity for processing
historical business-oriented data in an attempt to predict trends, identify changes and inform strategic decision-
making. The abundance of time-series data has prompted the development of state-of-the-art machine learning
algorithms, such as neural networks, capable of forecasting both univariate and multivariate time-series data.
Various time-series forecasting approaches can be implemented when leveraging the potential of deep neu-
ral networks. Determining the upsides and downsides of each approach when presented with univariate or
multivariate time-series data, thus becomes a crucial matter. This evaluation focuses on three forecasting ap-
proaches: a single model forecasting approach (SMFA), a global model forecasting model (GMFA) and a
cluster-based forecasting approach (CBFA). The study highlights the fact that the decision pertaining to the
finest forecasting approach often is a question of trade-off between accuracy, execution time and dataset size.
In this study, we also compare the performance of 6 deep learning architectures when dealing with both uni-
variate and multivariate time-series datasets for multi-step ahead time-series forecasting, across 6 benchmark
datasets.