About Orbit

Orbit is a Python package for Bayesian time series modeling and inference. It provides a familiar and intuitive initialize-fit-predict interface for working with time series tasks, while utilizing probabilistic programing languages under the hood.

Currently, it supports the following models:

  • Exponential Smoothing (ETS)

  • Local Global Trend (LGT)

  • Damped Local Trend (DLT)

It also supports the following sampling methods for model estimation:

  • Markov-Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) as a full sampling method

  • Maximum a Posteriori (MAP) as a point estimate method

  • Variational Inference (VI) as a hybrid-sampling method on approximate distribution

Quick Example

Orbit APIs follow a Scikit-learn stype API design, with a user-friendly interface. After instantiating a model object, one can use .fit and .predict for model training and prediction. Below is a quick illustration using the DLT model.

from orbit.models.dlt import DLTFull

dlt = DLTFull(
    response_col='claims',
    date_col='week',
    regressor_col=['trend.unemploy', 'trend.filling', 'trend.job'],
    seasonality=52,
)

dlt.fit(df=train_df)

predicted_df = dlt.predict(df=test_df)

Citation

To cite Orbit in publications, refer to the following whitepaper:

Orbit: Probabilistic Forecast with Exponential Smoothing

Bibtex:

@misc{ng2020orbit, title={Orbit: Probabilistic Forecast with Exponential Smoothing}, author={Edwin Ng, Zhishi Wang, Huigang Chen, Steve Yang, Slawek Smyl}, year={2020}, eprint={2004.08492}, archivePrefix={arXiv}, primaryClass={stat.CO}}