Self-learning physical reservoir computer.

A self-learning physical reservoir computer is demonstrated using an adaptive oscillator. Whereas physical reservoir computing repurposes the dynamics of a physical system for computation through machine learning, adaptive oscillators can innately learn and store information in plastic dynamic states. The adaptive state(s) can be used directly as physical node(s), but these plastic states can also be used to self-learn the optimal reservoir parameters for more complex tasks requiring virtual nodes from the base oscillator. Both this self-learning property for reconfigurable computing and the morphable logic gate property of the adaptive oscillator make this an ideal candidate for a multipurpose neuromorphic processor.

Multiplex-free physical reservoir computing with an adaptive oscillator.

Nonlinear oscillators can often be used as physical reservoir computers, in which the oscillator's dynamics simultaneously performs computation and stores information. Typically, the dynamic states are multiplexed in time, and then machine learning is used to unlock this stored information into a usable form. This time multiplexing is used to create virtual nodes, which are often necessary to capture enough information to perform different tasks, but this multiplexing procedure requires a relatively high sampling rate. Adaptive oscillators, which are a subset of nonlinear oscillators, have plastic states that learn and store information through their dynamics in a human readable form, without the need for machine learning. Highlighting this ability, adaptive oscillators have been used as analog frequency analyzers, robotic controllers, and energy harvesters. Here, adaptive oscillators are considered as a physical reservoir computer without the cumbersome time multiplexing procedure. With this multiplex-free physical reservoir computer architecture, the fundamental logic gates can be simultaneously calculated through dynamics without modifying the base oscillator.

Hopf physical reservoir computer for reconfigurable sound recognition.

The Hopf oscillator is a nonlinear oscillator that exhibits limit cycle motion. This reservoir computer utilizes the vibratory nature of the oscillator, which makes it an ideal candidate for reconfigurable sound recognition tasks. In this paper, the capabilities of the Hopf reservoir computer performing sound recognition are systematically demonstrated. This work shows that the Hopf reservoir computer can offer superior sound recognition accuracy compared to legacy approaches (e.g., a Mel spectrum + machine learning approach). More importantly, the Hopf reservoir computer operating as a sound recognition system does not require audio preprocessing and has a very simple setup while still offering a high degree of reconfigurability. These features pave the way of applying physical reservoir computing for sound recognition in low power edge devices.

Genetic algorithm shape optimization to manipulate the nonlinear response of a clamped-clamped beam.

Dynamical systems, which are described by differential equations, can have an enhanced response because of their nonlinearity. As one example, the Duffing oscillator can exhibit multiple stable vibratory states for some external forcing frequencies. Although discrete systems that are described by ordinary differential equations have helped to build fundamental groundwork, further efforts are needed in order to tailor nonlinearity into distributed parameter, continuous systems, which are described by partial differential equations. To modify the nonlinear response of continuous systems, topology optimization can be used to change the shape of the mechanical system. While topology optimization is well-developed for linear systems, less work has been pursued to optimize the nonlinear vibratory response of continuous systems. In this paper, a genetic algorithm implementation of shape optimization for continuous systems is described. The method is very general, with flexible objective functions and very few assumptions; it is applicable to any continuous system. As a case study, a clamped-clamped beam is optimized to have a more nonlinear or less nonlinear vibratory response. This genetic algorithm implementation of shape optimization could provide a tool to improve the performance of many continuous structures, including MEMS sensors, actuators, and macroscale civil structures.

Dynamic effects on reservoir computing with a Hopf oscillator.

Limit cycle oscillators have the potential to be resourced as reservoir computers due to their rich dynamics. Here, a Hopf oscillator is used as a physical reservoir computer by discarding the delay line and time-multiplexing procedure. A parametric study is used to uncover computational limits imposed by the dynamics of the oscillator using parity and chaotic time-series prediction benchmark tasks. Resonance, frequency ratios from the Farey sequence, and Arnold tongues were found to strongly affect the computation ability of the reservoir. These results provide insights into fabricating physical reservoir computers from limit cycle systems.

A Hopf physical reservoir computer.

Physical reservoir computing utilizes a physical system as a computational resource. This nontraditional computing technique can be computationally powerful, without the need of costly training. Here, a Hopf oscillator is implemented as a reservoir computer by using a node-based architecture; however, this implementation does not use delayed feedback lines. This reservoir computer is still powerful, but it is considerably simpler and cheaper to implement as a physical Hopf oscillator. A non-periodic stochastic masking procedure is applied for this reservoir computer following the time multiplexing method. Due to the presence of noise, the Euler-Maruyama method is used to simulate the resulting stochastic differential equations that represent this reservoir computer. An analog electrical circuit is built to implement this Hopf oscillator reservoir computer experimentally. The information processing capability was tested numerically and experimentally by performing logical tasks, emulation tasks, and time series prediction tasks. This reservoir computer has several attractive features, including a simple design that is easy to implement, noise robustness, and a high computational ability for many different benchmark tasks. Since limit cycle oscillators model many physical systems, this architecture could be relatively easily applied in many contexts.

A four-state adaptive Hopf oscillator.

Adaptive oscillators (AOs) are nonlinear oscillators with plastic states that encode information. Here, an analog implementation of a four-state adaptive oscillator, including design, fabrication, and verification through hardware measurement, is presented. The result is an oscillator that can learn the frequency and amplitude of an external stimulus over a large range. Notably, the adaptive oscillator learns parameters of external stimuli through its ability to completely synchronize without using any pre- or post-processing methods. Previously, Hopf oscillators have been built as two-state (a regular Hopf oscillator) and three-state (a Hopf oscillator with adaptive frequency) systems via VLSI and FPGA designs. Building on these important implementations, a continuous-time, analog circuit implementation of a Hopf oscillator with adaptive frequency and amplitude is achieved. The hardware measurements and SPICE simulation show good agreement. To demonstrate some of its functionality, the circuit's response to several complex waveforms, including the response of a square wave, a sawtooth wave, strain gauge data of an impact of a nonlinear beam, and audio data of a noisy microphone recording, are reported. By learning both the frequency and amplitude, this circuit could be used to enhance applications of AOs for robotic gait, clock oscillators, analog frequency analyzers, and energy harvesting.