Detection of anomalous episodes in urban Ozone maps

Abstract

In addition to classification and regression, outlier detection has emerged as a relevant activity in deep learning. In comparison with previous approaches where the original features of the examples were used for separating the examples with high dissimilarity from the rest of the examples, deep learning can automatically extract useful features from raw data, thus removing the need for most of the feature engineering efforts usually required with classical machine learning approaches. This requires training the deep learning algorithm with labels identifying the examples or with numerical values. Although outlier detection in deep learning has been usually undertaken by training the algorithm with categorical labels-classifier-, it can also be performed by using the algorithm as regressor. Nowadays numerous urban areas have deployed a network of sensors for monitoring multiple variables about air quality. The measurements of these sensors can be treated individually-as time series-or collectively. Collectively, a variable monitored by a network of sensors can be transformed into a map. Maps can be used as images in machine learning algorithms-including computer vision algorithms-for outlier detection. The identification of anomalous episodes in air quality monitoring networks allows later processing this time period with finer-grained scientific packages involving fluid dynamic and chemical evolution software, or the identification of malfunction stations. In this work, a Convolutional Neural Network is trained-as a regressor-using as input Ozone-urban images generated from the Air Quality Monitoring Network of Madrid (Spain). The learned features are processed by Density-based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN) algorithm for identifying anomalous maps. Comparisons with other deep learning architectures are undertaken, for instance, autoencoders-undercomplete and denoizing-for learning salient features of the maps and later to use as input of DBSCAN. The proposed approach is able efficiently find maps with local anomalies compared to other approaches based on raw images or latent features extracted with autoencoders architectures with DBSCAN.