Anomaly Detection’s New Frontiers: From Pixels to Probes and Privacy

Latest 50 papers on anomaly detection: Nov. 16, 2025

Anomaly detection is the unsung hero of AI, constantly working behind the scenes to spot the unusual, the broken, and the dangerous. From critical infrastructure to medical diagnostics and even the very fabric of our AI systems, identifying anomalies is paramount. This surge of recent research showcases an exciting evolution, moving beyond traditional methods to embrace cutting-edge techniques, tackle complex data, and even generate anomalies on demand.### The Big Ideas & Core Innovationsoverarching theme in these papers is a push towards more robust, interpretable, and adaptable anomaly detection systems, often leveraging novel architectures and data-handling strategies. A significant trend is addressing the challenge of limited or unlabeled anomaly data by either generating synthetic anomalies or learning from normal data.see innovative approaches to video anomaly detection, like the DSANet framework from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) researchers Wenti Yin, Huaxin Zhang et al. This method disentangles normal and abnormal features at multiple granularity levels, improving temporal localization and class discrimination. Building on this, Hari Lee’s TbVAD goes a step further by performing video anomaly detection and explanation entirely in the textual domain using Large Language Models (LLMs) and structured knowledge. Meanwhile, the M2S2L framework introduces a Mamba-based multi-scale spatial-temporal learning approach, outperforming existing models in detecting subtle video anomalies.challenge of data scarcity is further tackled by new anomaly generation techniques. Sungkyunkwan University’s Yulim So and Seokho Kang’s AnoStyler leverages lightweight style transfer to create realistic, text-driven anomalies from a single normal image. Similarly, Anomagic, by Yuxin Jiang et al. from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Tsinghua University, introduces a zero-shot, crossmodal prompt-driven anomaly generation method, complete with a novel dataset, AnomVerse.and robustness are also key. The Harvard University team behind SPARKER (Gaia Grosso et al.) introduces a sparse, self-organizing ensemble of local kernels to detect rare statistical anomalies with built-in interpretability. For Isolation-based methods, the Function Based Isolation Forest (FuBIF) provides a unifying framework that generalizes existing techniques and offers explanations through its companion tool, FuBIFFI.papers address time series data, a notoriously difficult domain. Mercedes-Benz AG and Leiden University researchers Lucas Correia et al. present TeVAE, a variational autoencoder for discrete online anomaly detection that avoids the “bypass phenomenon” and introduces new evaluation metrics. In a similar vein, Wenlong Shang and Peng Chang from Beijing University of Technology introduce COGNOS, a model-agnostic enhancement framework that regularizes output statistics and uses Kalman Smoothing to denoise anomaly scores, yielding significant F-score uplifts.*Network security receives a major boost with frameworks like HybridGuard from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, which enhances minority-class intrusion detection in Edge-of-Things networks using WCGANs and mutual information. Another notable contribution, AnomalyAID from Soochow University and Southeast University researchers Yachao Yuan et al., focuses on reliable interpretation for semi-supervised network anomaly detection using a Global-local Knowledge Association Mechanism., the growing need for privacy-preserving and explainable AI is evident. Joseph Fioresi et al. from the University of Central Florida introduce SPLAVU, a method for privacy-preserving video understanding by anonymizing latent features rather than pixels. Meanwhile, Peking University researchers Xinlong Zhao et al. tackle zero-label cross-system log-based anomaly detection with GeneralLog and FusionLog, both leveraging LLMs and small models for knowledge-level collaboration without labeled data.### Under the Hood: Models, Datasets, & Benchmarksadvancements are powered by novel models, carefully curated datasets, and rigorous benchmarks:DSANet and M2S2L: Advanced deep learning architectures tailored for video data, utilizing multi-scale feature extraction and attention mechanisms. Evaluated on standard video anomaly detection benchmarks like XD-Violence and UCF-Crime.Anomagic: Introduces AnomVerse, an extensive dataset of 12,987 anomaly-mask-caption triplets, enabling zero-shot anomaly generation. Code: https://github.com/yuxin-jiang/AnomagicAnoStyler: A lightweight style transfer model for zero-shot anomaly generation, evaluated on MVTec-AD and VisA benchmarks. Code: https://github.com/yulimso/AnoStylerVLMDiff: Combines Vision-Language Models (VLMs) and diffusion models for multi-class anomaly detection, achieving significant gains on Real-IAD and COCO-AD datasets. Code: https://github.com/giddyyupp/VLMDiffADPretrain: A specialized framework for anomaly representation pretraining, employing angle- and norm-oriented contrastive losses. Utilizes the RealIAD dataset. Code: https://github.com/xcyao00/ADPretrainWDT-MD: Wavelet Diffusion Transformers for Microaneurysm Detection in fundus images, outperforming SOTA on pixel-level and image-level MA detection. Code: https://github.com/diaoquesang/WDT-MDM2V-UGAD: A missing values-resistant unsupervised graph anomaly detection framework using a dual-pathway encoder. Evaluated on multiple benchmark datasets. Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.09917DeNoise: Learns robust graph representations for unsupervised graph-level anomaly detection. Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.04086xLSTMAD: An xLSTM-based method for anomaly detection in time series, showing superior performance on various benchmark datasets. Code: https://github.com/Nyderx/xlstmadTeVAE: A temporal variational autoencoder for discrete online anomaly detection, validated on industrial data. Code: https://github.com/lcs-crr/TeVAECOGNOS: A model-agnostic enhancement framework for time series anomaly detection, tested across multiple backbone models and datasets. Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.06894Fault Detection in Solar Thermal Systems: Utilizes probabilistic reconstruction, evaluated on the PaSTS dataset of real-world domestic STS. Code: https://github.com/florianebmeier/pa sts. Dataset: https://zenodo.org/records/11093493ZeroLog, GeneralLog, FusionLog: LLM-small model collaboration for zero-label cross-system log-based anomaly detection, achieving high F1-scores on HDFS, BGL, and OpenStack datasets. ZeroLog Code: https://github.com/ZeroLog-Project/ZeroLog. GeneralLog Code: https://github.com/XinlongZhao/GeneralLog.OSBAD: An open-source benchmark for statistical and machine-learning anomaly detection in battery applications, integrating 15 algorithms. Code: https://github.com/meichinpang/osbadPUL-SLAM: Integrates path planning and uncertainty estimation for efficient robotic exploration. Code: https://github.com/your-repo/pul-slamDetecting Silent Failures in Multi-Agentic AI Trajectories: Introduces two new benchmark datasets with over 5,000 trajectories for anomaly detection in agentic AI. Code: https://github.com/IBMResearch/AgenticAnomalyDetectionIEC3D-AD**: The first comprehensive 3D dataset for unsupervised anomaly detection in industrial equipment components. Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.03267### Impact & The Road Aheadimplications of these advancements are profound. We’re moving towards a future where anomaly detection is not just reactive but proactive, not just accurate but explainable, and not just specialized but generalizable. The ability to detect anomalies with limited labeled data through zero-shot generation and self-supervised learning significantly broadens the applicability of AI, especially in critical domains like healthcare and industrial monitoring where anomalies are rare but impactful.-preserving methods are crucial for deploying AI responsibly in sensitive areas like video surveillance and medical diagnostics. The integration of quantum computing and federated learning (Federated Quantum Kernel Learning for Anomaly Detection in Multivariate IoT Time-Series and Towards Personalized Quantum Federated Learning for Anomaly Detection) signals an exciting leap towards truly secure and decentralized anomaly detection systems. Furthermore, frameworks like KAT (Kunlun Anomaly Troubleshooter) are making large AI models more reliable by pinpointing kernel-level issues with causal reasoning.push for explainability, as seen in TbVAD and FuBIF, is transforming anomaly detection from a black box to a transparent decision-making process, fostering trust and enabling faster troubleshooting. As AI systems become more complex and integrated into every aspect of our lives, these innovations in anomaly detection are not just improvements; they are foundational steps toward a more resilient, secure, and intelligent future.journey continues, with open questions around universal benchmarks for diverse anomaly types, bridging the gap between generated and real-world anomalies, and scaling interpretable methods to ever-larger datasets. But one thing is clear: the field of anomaly detection is vibrant, innovative, and indispensable.