Robust Forecasting through Generalized Synchronization in Reservoir Computing

Reservoir computers (RC) are a form of recurrent neural network (RNN) used for forecasting timeseries data. As with all RNNs, selecting the hyperparameters presents a challenge when training onnew inputs. We present a method based on generalized synchronization (GS) that gives direction in designing and evaluating the architecture and hyperparameters of an RC. The auxiliary method for detecting GS provides a computationally efficient pre-training test that guides hyperparameterselection. Furthermore, we provide a metric for RC using the reproduction of the input systems Lyapunov exponentsthat demonstrates robustness in prediction.