Exploiting Heterogeneous Units for Reservoir Computing with Simple Architecture

Reservoir computing is a computational framework suited for sequential data processing, consisting of a reservoir part and a readout part. Not only theoretical and numerical studies on reservoir computing but also its implementation with physical devices have attracted much attention. In most studies, the reservoir part is constructed with identical units. However, a variability of physical units is inevitable, particularly when implemented with nano/micro devices. Here we numerically examine the effect of variability of reservoir units on computational performance. We show that the heterogeneity in reservoir units can be beneficial in reducing the prediction error in the reservoir computing system with a simple cycle reservoir.