SimDiff: Simpler Yet Better Diffusion Model for Time Series Point Forecasting

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Ding, Hang, Wang, Xue, Zhou, Tian, Yao, Tao
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866908672026738688
author Ding, Hang
Wang, Xue
Zhou, Tian
Yao, Tao
author_facet Ding, Hang
Wang, Xue
Zhou, Tian
Yao, Tao
contents Diffusion models have recently shown promise in time series forecasting, particularly for probabilistic predictions. However, they often fail to achieve state-of-the-art point estimation performance compared to regression-based methods. This limitation stems from difficulties in providing sufficient contextual bias to track distribution shifts and in balancing output diversity with the stability and precision required for point forecasts. Existing diffusion-based approaches mainly focus on full-distribution modeling under probabilistic frameworks, often with likelihood maximization objectives, while paying little attention to dedicated strategies for high-accuracy point estimation. Moreover, other existing point prediction diffusion methods frequently rely on pre-trained or jointly trained mature models for contextual bias, sacrificing the generative flexibility of diffusion models. To address these challenges, we propose SimDiff, a single-stage, end-to-end framework. SimDiff employs a single unified Transformer network carefully tailored to serve as both denoiser and predictor, eliminating the need for external pre-trained or jointly trained regressors. It achieves state-of-the-art point estimation performance by leveraging intrinsic output diversity and improving mean squared error accuracy through multiple inference ensembling. Key innovations, including normalization independence and the median-of-means estimator, further enhance adaptability and stability. Extensive experiments demonstrate that SimDiff significantly outperforms existing methods in time series point forecasting.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_19256
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle SimDiff: Simpler Yet Better Diffusion Model for Time Series Point Forecasting
Ding, Hang
Wang, Xue
Zhou, Tian
Yao, Tao
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Diffusion models have recently shown promise in time series forecasting, particularly for probabilistic predictions. However, they often fail to achieve state-of-the-art point estimation performance compared to regression-based methods. This limitation stems from difficulties in providing sufficient contextual bias to track distribution shifts and in balancing output diversity with the stability and precision required for point forecasts. Existing diffusion-based approaches mainly focus on full-distribution modeling under probabilistic frameworks, often with likelihood maximization objectives, while paying little attention to dedicated strategies for high-accuracy point estimation. Moreover, other existing point prediction diffusion methods frequently rely on pre-trained or jointly trained mature models for contextual bias, sacrificing the generative flexibility of diffusion models. To address these challenges, we propose SimDiff, a single-stage, end-to-end framework. SimDiff employs a single unified Transformer network carefully tailored to serve as both denoiser and predictor, eliminating the need for external pre-trained or jointly trained regressors. It achieves state-of-the-art point estimation performance by leveraging intrinsic output diversity and improving mean squared error accuracy through multiple inference ensembling. Key innovations, including normalization independence and the median-of-means estimator, further enhance adaptability and stability. Extensive experiments demonstrate that SimDiff significantly outperforms existing methods in time series point forecasting.
title SimDiff: Simpler Yet Better Diffusion Model for Time Series Point Forecasting
topic Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.19256