WINNING ENTRY OF THE K. U. LEUVEN TIME-SERIES PREDICTION COMPETITION

Abstract

In this paper we describe the winning entry of the time-series prediction competition which was part of the International Workshop on Advanced Black-Box Techniques for Nonlinear Modeling, held at K. U. Leuven, Belgium on July 8–10, 1998. We also describe the source of the data set, a nonlinear transform of a 5-scroll generalized Chua's circuit. Participants were given 2000 data points and were asked to predict the next 200 points in the series. The winning entry exploited symmetry that was discovered during exploratory data analysis and a method of local modeling designed specifically for the prediction of chaotic time-series. This method includes an exponentially weighted metric, a nearest trajectory algorithm, integrated local averaging, and a novel multistep ahead cross-validation estimation of model error for the purpose of parameter optimization.