FlowPath: Learning Data-Driven Manifolds with Invertible Flows for Robust Irregularly-sampled Time Series Classification

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Oh, YongKyung, Lim, Dong-Young, Kim, Sungil
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Oh, YongKyung
Lim, Dong-Young
Kim, Sungil
author_facet Oh, YongKyung
Lim, Dong-Young
Kim, Sungil
contents Modeling continuous-time dynamics from sparse and irregularly-sampled time series remains a fundamental challenge. Neural controlled differential equations provide a principled framework for such tasks, yet their performance is highly sensitive to the choice of control path constructed from discrete observations. Existing methods commonly employ fixed interpolation schemes, which impose simplistic geometric assumptions that often misrepresent the underlying data manifold, particularly under high missingness. We propose FlowPath, a novel approach that learns the geometry of the control path via an invertible neural flow. Rather than merely connecting observations, FlowPath constructs a continuous and data-adaptive manifold, guided by invertibility constraints that enforce information-preserving and well-behaved transformations. This inductive bias distinguishes FlowPath from prior unconstrained learnable path models. Empirical evaluations on 18 benchmark datasets and a real-world case study demonstrate that FlowPath consistently achieves statistically significant improvements in classification accuracy over baselines using fixed interpolants or non-invertible architectures. These results highlight the importance of modeling not only the dynamics along the path but also the geometry of the path itself, offering a robust and generalizable solution for learning from irregular time series.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_10841
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle FlowPath: Learning Data-Driven Manifolds with Invertible Flows for Robust Irregularly-sampled Time Series Classification
Oh, YongKyung
Lim, Dong-Young
Kim, Sungil
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Modeling continuous-time dynamics from sparse and irregularly-sampled time series remains a fundamental challenge. Neural controlled differential equations provide a principled framework for such tasks, yet their performance is highly sensitive to the choice of control path constructed from discrete observations. Existing methods commonly employ fixed interpolation schemes, which impose simplistic geometric assumptions that often misrepresent the underlying data manifold, particularly under high missingness. We propose FlowPath, a novel approach that learns the geometry of the control path via an invertible neural flow. Rather than merely connecting observations, FlowPath constructs a continuous and data-adaptive manifold, guided by invertibility constraints that enforce information-preserving and well-behaved transformations. This inductive bias distinguishes FlowPath from prior unconstrained learnable path models. Empirical evaluations on 18 benchmark datasets and a real-world case study demonstrate that FlowPath consistently achieves statistically significant improvements in classification accuracy over baselines using fixed interpolants or non-invertible architectures. These results highlight the importance of modeling not only the dynamics along the path but also the geometry of the path itself, offering a robust and generalizable solution for learning from irregular time series.
title FlowPath: Learning Data-Driven Manifolds with Invertible Flows for Robust Irregularly-sampled Time Series Classification
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.10841