Neural units with time-dependent functionality

Abstract

We show that the time-resolved dynamics of an underdamped harmonic oscillator can be used to do multifunctional computation, performing distinct computations at distinct times within a single dynamical trajectory. We consider the amplitude of an oscillator whose inputs influence its frequency. The activity of the oscillator at fixed time is a nonmonotonic function of its inputs, and so it can solve problems such as XOR that are not linearly separable. The activity of the oscillator at fixed input is a nonmonotonic function of time, and so it is multifunctional in a temporal sense, able to carry out distinct nonlinear computations at distinct times within the same dynamical trajectory. We show that a single oscillator, observed at different times, can act as all of the elementary logic gates and can perform binary addition, the latter usually implemented in hardware using 5 logic gates. We show that a set of $n$ oscillators, observed at different times, can perform an arbitrary number of analog-to-$n$-bit digital conversions. We also show that oscillators can be trained by gradient descent to perform distinct classification tasks at distinct times. Computing with time-dependent functionality can be done in or out of equilibrium, and suggests a way of reducing the number of parameters or devices required to do nonlinear computations.