The role of delay-times in delay-based Photonic Reservoir Computing

Delay-based reservoir computing has gained a lot of attention due to the relative simplicity with which this concept can be implemented in hardware. However,there is still an misconception about the relationship between the delay-time and the input clock-cycle which has noticeable consequences for the performance. We review the existing literature on this subject and introduce the concept of delay-based reservoir computing in a manner that demonstrates that there is no predefined relationship between these two times-scales. Further, we discuss ways to improve the computing performance of a reservoir formed by delay-coupled oscillators and show the crucial impact of delay-time tuning in those multi-delay systems.