Interpretable Multi-Hypersphere Deep Anomaly Detection for Open-set Supervised Anomaly Detection

Abstract:Multi-class open-set anomaly detection requires a model to characterize the normal acceptance domain formed by multiple heterogeneous subdistributions using only class-labeled samples from known normal classes, and to identify previously unseen anomalies at test time. Existing single-hypersphere methods cannot explicitly represent class-specific locations and acceptance ranges, while current multi-hypersphere or multi-class approaches do not fully integrate inter-class boundary constraints, learnable acceptance ranges, and interpretable decisions. To address these limitations, we propose Interpretable Multi-Hypersphere Deep Anomaly Detection (IMHD-AD). IMHD-AD constructs an independent hypersphere for each known normal class in a shared feature space. With target-inside and non-target-outside constraints, IMHD-AD embeds the class-specific hypersphere centers and radii directly into the final network layer and jointly optimizes them with the shared representation. The minimum signed boundary score across hyperspheres simultaneously determines open-set acceptance or rejection and provides a faithful geometric explanation of each decision. On MNIST, Fashion-MNIST, and CIFAR-10, IMHD-AD achieves the highest AUC in 28 of 30 open-set comparisons. A two-dimensional synthetic study further shows that model architecture must balance the compactness of known normal classes against the separability of unknown anomalies.

Machine Learning (cs.LG); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)

arXiv:2609.23008 [cs.LG]

(or arXiv:2609.23008v1 [cs.LG] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.23008 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.