AI engineering glossary · Feature engineering data prep
What is robust scaling?
Robust scaling (also called RobustScaler): A scaling method that subtracts the median and divides by the interquartile range (Q3 - Q1) instead of using mean and standard deviation. Because medians and quartiles barely move when extreme values appear, it keeps typical data well scaled in the presence of outliers.
Robust scaling: an example
For house prices with a few Rs 50 crore mansions, robust scaling centres on the median price and keeps most homes in a sensible range, where min-max would squash them near 0.
Related terms
- Min-max scaling
- Standardization
- Interquartile range
- Outlier
More Feature engineering data prep terms
- Rolling statistics
- Sample weights
- SMOTE
- Standardization
- Stemming
- Stepwise selection
- Stop words
- Target encoding
Where you learn it
Robust scaling is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.