Efficient reservoir computing using field programmable gate array and electro-optic modulation

We experimentally demonstrate a hybrid reservoir computing system consisting of an electro-optic modulator and field programmable gate array (FPGA). It implements delay lines and filters digitally for flexible dynamics and high connectivity, while supporting a large number of reservoir nodes. To evaluate the system’s performance and versatility, three benchmark tests are performed. The first is the 10th order Nonlinear Auto-Regressive Moving Average test (NARMA-10), where the predictions of 1000 and 25,000 steps yield impressively low normalized root mean square errors (NRMSE’s) of 0.142 and 0.148, respectively. Such accurate predictions over into the far future speak to its capability of large sample size processing, as enabled by the present hybrid design. The second is the Santa Fe laser data prediction, where a normalized mean square error (NMSE) of 6.73 × 10−3 is demonstrated. The third is the isolate spoken digit recognition, with a word error rate close to 0.34%. Accurate, versatile, flexibly reconfigurable, and capable of long-term prediction, this reservoir computing system could find a wealth of impactful applications in real-time information processing, weather forecasting, and financial analysis.