Re-Diffusion: Modeling Latent Residuals with Diffusion for Time-Series Forecasting

Generative latent diffusion models (LDMs) have been extensively applied in various fields yet underperform in time-series prediction. Therefore, We propose the Re-Diffusion model, a latent diffusion approach that generates backbone residuals specifically tailored for time-series forecasting. The model comprises a variational autoencoder that compresses the residuals between the actual future values and the predictions from the backbone into latent space. It also includes a conditional diffusion generator to forecast the potential distribution of these residuals. Our findings reveal that this latent-space methodology particularly enhances existing backbone predictors, by effectively reducing prediction bias through an advanced estimation of complex error distributions. While previous diffusion-based models tend to struggle with long-term forecasting, Re-Diffusion integrates the strengths of diffusion methods, leading to improvements in long-term predictions. Our experimental results indicate that the Re-Diffusion model achieves a 10% promotion over state-of-art predictors, marking a significant advancement in the field of time-series forecasting.