Automated Data Augmentation for Few-Shot Time Series Forecasting: A Reinforcement Learning Approach Guided by a Model Zoo

Time series forecasting, particularly in few-shot learning scenarios, is challenging due to the limited availability of high-quality training data. To address this, we present a pilot study on using reinforcement learning (RL) for time series data augmentation. Our method, ReAugment, tackles three critical questions: which parts of the training set should be augmented, how the augmentation should be performed, and what advantages RL brings to the process. Specifically, our approach maintains a forecasting model zoo, and by measuring prediction diversity across the models, we identify samples with higher probabilities for overfitting and use them as the anchor points for augmentation. Leveraging RL, our method adaptively transforms the overfit-prone samples into new data that not only enhances training set diversity but also directs the augmented data to target regions where the forecasting models are prone to overfitting. We validate the effectiveness of ReAugment across a wide range of base models, showing its advantages in both standard time series forecasting and few-shot learning tasks.

@article{yuan2025_2409.06282,
  title={ Automated Data Augmentation for Few-Shot Time Series Forecasting: A Reinforcement Learning Approach Guided by a Model Zoo },
  author={ Haochen Yuan and Yutong Wang and Yihong Chen and Yunbo Wang },
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.06282},
  year={ 2025 }
}