A Two-Step Method for Missing Spatio-Temporal Data Reconstruction

Missing data reconstruction is a critical step in the analysis and mining of spatio-temporal data; however, few studies comprehensively consider missing data patterns, sample selection and spatio-temporal relationships. As a result, traditional methods often fail to obtain satisfactory accuracy or address high levels of complexity. To combat these problems, this study developed an effective two-step method for spatio-temporal missing data reconstruction (ST-2SMR). This approach includes a coarse-grained interpolation method for considering missing patterns, which can successfully eliminate the influence of continuous missing data on the overall results. Based on the results of coarse-grained interpolation, a dynamic sliding window selection algorithm was implemented to determine the most relevant sample data for fine-grained interpolation, considering both spatial and temporal heterogeneity. Finally, spatio-temporal interpolation results were integrated by using a neural network model. We validated our approach using Beijing air quality data and found that the proposed method outperforms existing solutions in term of estimation accuracy and reconstruction rate.