AnomSeer: Reinforcing Multimodal LLMs to Reason for Time-Series Anomaly Detection

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Zhang, Junru, Feng, Lang, Shi, Haoran, Guo, Xu, Yu, Han, Dong, Yabo, Xu, Duanqing
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Zhang, Junru
Feng, Lang
Shi, Haoran
Guo, Xu
Yu, Han
Dong, Yabo
Xu, Duanqing
author_facet Zhang, Junru
Feng, Lang
Shi, Haoran
Guo, Xu
Yu, Han
Dong, Yabo
Xu, Duanqing
contents Time-series anomaly detection (TSAD) with multimodal large language models (MLLMs) is an emerging area, yet a persistent challenge remains: MLLMs rely on coarse time-series heuristics but struggle with multi-dimensional, detailed reasoning, which is vital for understanding complex time-series data. We present AnomSeer to address this by reinforcing the model to ground its reasoning in precise, structural details of time series, unifying anomaly classification, localization, and explanation. At its core, an expert chain-of-thought trace is generated to provide a verifiable, fine-grained reasoning from classical analyses (e.g., statistical measures, frequency transforms). Building on this, we propose a novel time-series grounded policy optimization (TimerPO) that incorporates two additional components beyond standard reinforcement learning: a time-series grounded advantage based on optimal transport and an orthogonal projection to ensure this auxiliary granular signal does not interfere with the primary detection objective. Across diverse anomaly scenarios, AnomSeer, with Qwen2.5-VL-3B/7B-Instruct, outperforms larger commercial baselines (e.g., GPT-4o) in classification and localization accuracy, particularly on point- and frequency-driven exceptions. Moreover, it produces plausible time-series reasoning traces that support its conclusions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_08868
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle AnomSeer: Reinforcing Multimodal LLMs to Reason for Time-Series Anomaly Detection
Zhang, Junru
Feng, Lang
Shi, Haoran
Guo, Xu
Yu, Han
Dong, Yabo
Xu, Duanqing
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Time-series anomaly detection (TSAD) with multimodal large language models (MLLMs) is an emerging area, yet a persistent challenge remains: MLLMs rely on coarse time-series heuristics but struggle with multi-dimensional, detailed reasoning, which is vital for understanding complex time-series data. We present AnomSeer to address this by reinforcing the model to ground its reasoning in precise, structural details of time series, unifying anomaly classification, localization, and explanation. At its core, an expert chain-of-thought trace is generated to provide a verifiable, fine-grained reasoning from classical analyses (e.g., statistical measures, frequency transforms). Building on this, we propose a novel time-series grounded policy optimization (TimerPO) that incorporates two additional components beyond standard reinforcement learning: a time-series grounded advantage based on optimal transport and an orthogonal projection to ensure this auxiliary granular signal does not interfere with the primary detection objective. Across diverse anomaly scenarios, AnomSeer, with Qwen2.5-VL-3B/7B-Instruct, outperforms larger commercial baselines (e.g., GPT-4o) in classification and localization accuracy, particularly on point- and frequency-driven exceptions. Moreover, it produces plausible time-series reasoning traces that support its conclusions.
title AnomSeer: Reinforcing Multimodal LLMs to Reason for Time-Series Anomaly Detection
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.08868