9 July 2020, 3pm (BST)

Vianey Leos-Barajas (NCSU)

Title: 'Spatially-coupled hidden Markov models for short-term wind speed forecasting

Abstract: Hidden Markov models (HMMs) provide a flexible framework to model time series data where the observation process, Yt, is taken to be driven by an underlying latent state process, Zt. In this talk, we will focus on discrete-time, finite-state HMMs as they provide a flexible framework that facilitates extending the basic structure in many interesting ways. HMMs can accommodate multivariate processes by (i) assuming that a single state governs the M observations at time t, (ii) assuming that each observation process is governed by its own HMM, irrespective of what occurs elsewhere, or (iii) a balance between the two, as in the coupled HMM framework. Coupled HMMs assume that a collection of M observation processes is governed by its respective M state processes. However, the mth state process at time t, Zm,t not only depends on Zm,t−1 but also on the collection of state process Z−m,t−1. We introduce spatially-coupled hidden Markov models whereby the state processes interact according to an imposed spatial structure and the observations are collected at S spatial locations. We outline an application (in progress) to short-term forecasting of wind speed using data collected across multiple wind turbines at a wind farm.