Vestibular reservoir computing

arXiv cs.LG / 4/14/2026

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Key Points

  • The paper introduces a physical reservoir computing (RC) design inspired by the biological vestibular system to address the hardware complexity of traditional, fully coupled reservoir interconnects.
  • It proposes an “uncoupled” reservoir topology and shows experimentally that its performance can be comparable to that of fully coupled networks.
  • The authors derive a memory capacity formula for linear reservoirs and identify conditions under which uncoupled and fully coupled topologies achieve equivalent memory.
  • They extend the analysis to nonlinear reservoir systems, finding that the theoretical insights approximately carry over.
  • The study also investigates how reservoir size affects predictive statistics and memory capacity, concluding that uncoupled architectures are both mathematically grounded and practical for efficient physical RC.

Abstract

Reservoir computing (RC) is a computational framework known for its training efficiency, making it ideal for physical hardware implementations. However, realizing the complex interconnectivity of traditional reservoirs in physical systems remains a significant challenge. This paper proposes a physical RC scheme inspired by the biological vestibular system. To overcome hardware complexity, we introduce a designed uncoupled topology and demonstrate that it achieves performance comparable to fully coupled networks. We theoretically analyze the difference between these topologies by deriving a memory capacity formula for linear reservoirs, identifying specific conditions where both configurations yield equivalent memory. These analytical results are demonstrated to approximately hold for nonlinear reservoir systems. Furthermore, we systematically examine the impact of reservoir size on predictive statistics and memory capacity. Our findings suggest that uncoupled reservoir architectures offer a mathematically sound and practically feasible pathway for efficient physical reservoir computing.