Fast Convergence on Perfect Classification for Functional Data

Abstract

We investigate the availability of approaching perfect classification on functional data with finite samples. The seminal work (Delaigle and Hall (2012)) showed that perfect classification for functional data is easier to achieve than for finite-dimensional data. This result is based on their finding that a sufficient condition for the existence of a perfect classifier, named a Delaigle--Hall condition, is only available for functional data. However, there is a danger that a large sample size is required to achieve the perfect classification even though the Delaigle--Hall condition holds, because a minimax convergence rate of errors with functional data has a logarithm order in sample size. This study solves this complication by proving that the Delaigle--Hall condition also achieves fast convergence of the misclassification error in sample size, under the bounded entropy condition on functional data. We study a reproducing kernel Hilbert space-based classifier under the Delaigle--Hall condition, and show that a convergence rate of its misclassification error has an exponential order in sample size. Technically, our proof is based on (i) connecting the Delaigle--Hall condition and a margin of classifiers, and (ii) handling metric entropy of functional data. Our experiments support our result, and also illustrate that some other classifiers for functional data have a similar property.