A Hybrid Model of Conformer and LSTM for Ocean Wave Height Prediction

Abstract

This study proposes a hybrid model (Conformer-LSTM) based on Conformer and Long Short-Term Memory networks (LSTM) to overcome the limitations of existing techniques and enhance the accuracy and generalizability of wave height predictions. The model combines the advantages of self-attention mechanisms and convolutional neural networks. It captures global dependencies through multi-head self-attention and utilizes convolutional layers to extract local features, thereby enhancing the model’s adaptability to dynamic changes in time series. The LSTM component handles long-term dependencies, optimizing the coherence and stability of predictions. Additionally, an adaptive feature fusion weight network is introduced to further improve the model’s recognition and utilization efficiency of key features. Experimental data come from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration buoy data, covering wave height, wind speed, and other data from key maritime areas. Evaluation metrics include Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), and Coefficient of Determination (R2), ensuring a comprehensive assessment of model performance. The results show that the Conformer-LSTM model outperforms traditional LSTM, CNN, and CNN-LSTM models at multiple sites, confirming its potential in wave height prediction.