One-Shot Learning of Stochastic Differential Equations with Data Adapted Kernels

We consider the problem of learning Stochastic Differential Equations of the form dXt = f(Xt)dt+σ(Xt)dWt from one sample trajectory. This problem is more challenging than learning deterministic dynamical systems because one sample trajectory only provides indirect information on the unknown functions f, σ, and stochastic process dWt representing the drift, the diffusion, and the stochastic forcing terms, respectively. We propose a method that combines Computational Graph Completion and data adapted kernels learned via a new variant of cross validation. Our approach can be decomposed as follows: (1) Represent the time-increment map Xt rightarrow Xt+dt as a Computational Graph in which f, σ and dWt appear as unknown functions and random variables. (2) Complete the graph (approximate unknown functions and random variables) via Maximum a Posteriori Estimation (given the data) with Gaussian Process (GP) priors on the unknown functions. (3) Learn the covariance functions (kernels) of the GP priors from data with randomized cross-validation. Numerical experiments illustrate the efficacy, robustness, and scope of our method.