Adaptive symbolic transfer entropy and its applications in modeling for complex industrial systems

Directed coupling between variables is the foundation of studying the dynamical behavior of complex systems. We propose an adaptive symbolic transfer entropy (ASTE) method based on the principle of equal probability division. First, the adaptive kernel density method is used to obtain an accurate probability density function for an observation series. Second, the complete phase space of the system can be obtained by using the multivariable phase space reconstruction method. This provides common parameters for symbolizing a time series, including delay time and embedding dimension. Third, an optimization strategy is used to select the appropriate symbolic parameters of a time series, such as the symbol set and partition intervals, which can be used to convert the time series to a symbol sequence. Then the transfer entropy between the symbolic sequences can be carried out. Finally, the proposed method is analyzed and validated using the chaotic Lorenz system and typical complex industrial systems. The results show that the ASTE method is superior to the existing transfer entropy and symbolic transfer entropy methods in terms of measurement accuracy and noise resistance, and it can be applied to the network modeling and performance safety analysis of complex industrial systems.