A new hybrid methodology for nonlinear time series forecasting

Abstract

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are flexible computing frameworks and universal approximators that can be applied to a wide range of forecasting problems with a high degree of accuracy. However, using ANNs to model linear problems have yielded mixed results, and hence; it is not wise to apply them blindly to any type of data. This is the reason that hybrid methodologies combining linear models such as ARIMA and nonlinear models such as ANNs have been proposed in the literature of time series forecasting. Despite of all advantages of the traditional methodologies for combining ARIMA and ANNs, they have some assumptions that will degenerate their performance if the opposite situation occurs. In this paper, a new methodology is proposed in order to combine the ANNs with ARIMA in order to overcome the limitations of traditional hybrid methodologies and yield more general and more accurate hybrid models. Empirical results with Canadian Lynx data set indicate that the proposed methodology can be a more effective way in order to combine linear and nonlinear models together than traditional hybrid methodologies. Therefore, it can be applied as an appropriate alternative methodology for hybridization in time series forecasting field, especially when higher forecasting accuracy is needed. © 2011 M. Khashei and M. Bijari.