Reservoir Computing

This book is the first comprehensive book about reservoir computing (RC). RC is a powerful and broadly applicable computational framework based on recurrent neural networks. Its advantages lie in small training data set requirements, fast training, inherent memory and high flexibility for various hardware implementations. It originated from computational neuroscience and machine learning but has, in recent years, spread dramatically, and has been introduced into a wide variety of fields, including complex systems science, physics, material science, biological science, quantum machine learning, optical communication systems, and robotics. Reviewing the current state of the art and providing a concise guide to the field, this book introduces readers to its basic concepts, theory, techniques, physical implementations and applications. The book is sub-structured into two major parts: theory and physical implementations. Both parts consist of a compilation of chapters, authored by leading experts in their respective fields. The first part is devoted to theoretical developments of RC, extending the framework from the conventional recurrent neural network context to a more general dynamical systems context. With this broadened perspective, RC is not restricted to the area of machine learning but is being connected to a much wider class of systems. The second part of the book focuses on the utilization of physical dynamical systems as reservoirs, a framework referred to as physical reservoir computing. A variety of physical systems and substrates have already been suggested and used for the implementation of reservoir computing. Among these physical systems which cover a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, are mechanical and optical systems, nanomaterials, spintronics, and quantum many body systems. This book offers a valuable resource for researchers (Ph.D. students and experts alike) and practitioners working in the field of machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotics, neuromorphic computing, complex systems, and physics.

Photonics has long been considered an attractive substrate for next generation implementations of machine-learning concepts. Reservoir Computing tremendously facilitated the realization of recurrent neural networks in analogue hardware. This concept exploits the properties of complex nonlinear dynamical systems, giving rise to photonic reservoirs implemented by semiconductor lasers, telecommunication modulators and integrated photonic chips.

Photonics has long been considered an attractive substrate for next generation implementations of machine-learning concepts. Reservoir Computing tremendously facilitated the realization of recurrent neural networks in analogue hardware. This concept exploits the properties of complex nonlinear dynamical systems, giving rise to photonic reservoirs implemented by semiconductor lasers, telecommunication modulators and integrated photonic chips.

This book is concerned with computing in materio: that is, unconventional computing performed by directly harnessing the physical properties of materials. It offers an overview of the field, covering four main areas of interest: theory, practice, applications and implications. Each chapter synthesizes current understanding by deliberately bringing together researchers across a collection of related research projects. The book is useful for graduate students, researchers in the field, and the general scientific reader who is interested in inherently interdisciplinary research at the intersections of computer science, biology, chemistry, physics, engineering and mathematics.

This two volume set LNCS 5163 and LNCS 5164 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2008, held in Prague Czech Republic, in September 2008. The 200 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from more than 300 submissions. The first volume contains papers on mathematical theory of neurocomputing, learning algorithms, kernel methods, statistical learning and ensemble techniques, support vector machines, reinforcement learning, evolutionary computing, hybrid systems, self-organization, control and robotics, signal and time series processing and image processing.

Modern computing relies on future and emergent technologies which have been conceived via interaction between computer science, engineering, chemistry, physics and biology. This highly interdisciplinary book presents advances in the fields of parallel, distributed and emergent information processing and computation. The book represents major breakthroughs in parallel quantum protocols, elastic cloud servers, structural properties of interconnection networks, internet of things, morphogenetic collective systems, swarm intelligence and cellular automata, unconventionality in parallel computation, algorithmic information dynamics, localized DNA computation, graph-based cryptography, slime mold inspired nano-electronics and cytoskeleton computers. Features Truly interdisciplinary, spanning computer science, electronics, mathematics and biology Covers widely popular topics of future and emergent computing technologies, cloud computing, parallel computing, DNA computation, security and network analysis, cryptography, and theoretical computer science Provides unique chapters written by top experts in theoretical and applied computer science, information processing and engineering From Parallel to Emergent Computing provides a visionary statement on how computing will advance in the next 25 years and what new fields of science will be involved in computing engineering. This book is a valuable resource for computer scientists working today, and in years to come.

This book lies at the interface of machine learning – a subfield of computer science that develops algorithms for challenging tasks such as shape or image recognition, where traditional algorithms fail – and photonics – the physical science of light, which underlies many of the optical communications technologies used in our information society. It provides a thorough introduction to reservoir computing and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Recently, photonic implementations of reservoir computing (a machine learning algorithm based on artificial neural networks) have made a breakthrough in optical computing possible. In this book, the author pushes the performance of these systems significantly beyond what was achieved before. By interfacing a photonic reservoir computer with a high-speed electronic device (an FPGA), the author successfully interacts with the reservoir computer in real time, allowing him to considerably expand its capabilities and range of possible applications. Furthermore, the author draws on his expertise in machine learning and FPGA programming to make progress on a very different problem, namely the real-time image analysis of optical coherence tomography for atherosclerotic arteries.

The unconventional computing is a niche for interdisciplinary science, cross-bred of computer science, physics, mathematics, chemistry, electronic engineering, biology, material science and nanotechnology. The aims of this book are to uncover and exploit principles and mechanisms of information processing in and functional properties of physical, chemical and living systems to develop efficient algorithms, design optimal architectures and manufacture working prototypes of future and emergent computing devices. This first volume presents theoretical foundations of the future and emergent computing paradigms and architectures. The topics covered are computability, (non-)universality and complexity of computation; physics of computation, analog and quantum computing; reversible and asynchronous devices; cellular automata and other mathematical machines; P-systems and cellular computing; infinity and spatial computation; chemical and reservoir computing. The book is the encyclopedia, the first ever complete authoritative account, of the theoretical and experimental findings in the unconventional computing written by the world leaders in the field. All chapters are self-contains, no specialist background is required to appreciate ideas, findings, constructs and designs presented. This treatise in unconventional computing appeals to readers from all walks of life, from high-school pupils to university professors, from mathematicians, computers scientists and engineers to chemists and biologists.