Fast Mining and Dynamic Time-to-Event Prediction over Multi-sensor Data Streams

Abstract

Given real-time sensor data streams obtained from machines, how can we continuously predict when a machine failure will occur? This work aims to continuously forecast the timing of future events by analyzing multi-sensor data streams. A key characteristic of real-world data streams is their dynamic nature, where the underlying patterns evolve over time. To address this, we present TimeCast, a dynamic prediction framework designed to adapt to these changes and provide accurate, real-time predictions of future event time. Our proposed method has the following properties: (a) Dynamic: it identifies the distinct time-evolving patterns (i.e., stages) and learns individual models for each, enabling us to make adaptive predictions based on pattern shifts. (b) Practical: it finds meaningful stages that capture time-varying interdependencies between multiple sensors and improve prediction performance; (c) Scalable: our algorithm scales linearly with the input size and enables online model updates on data streams. Extensive experiments on real datasets demonstrate that TimeCast provides higher prediction accuracy than state-of-the-art methods while finding dynamic changes in data streams with a great reduction in computational time.