Echo State Network

Why Trust Techopedia

What Does Echo State Network Mean?

An echo state network (ESN) is a particular sort of recurrent neural network that is designed to help engineers get the benefits of this network type, without some of the challenges in training other traditional types of recurrent neural networks. It is connected to the idea of reservoir computing, and the general philosophy of developing learning results from fixed random neurons.

Advertisements

Techopedia Explains Echo State Network

In general, the echo state network deals with a random, large, fixed recurrent neural network where each neuron gets a non-linear response signal, and the connectivity and weights of neurons are fixed and assigned randomly. By dealing with input weights this way, the echo state network achieves a sort of flexible type of learning.

A model of a basic echo state network involves three components: an input signal, a dynamic reservoir and an output or “teacher” signal. Experts describe the work of this model as “harvesting reservoir states” and computing output weights to form machine learning analysis.

Essentially, different random states in the reservoir “echo” over time, and the network gets these interesting inputs and works on them to generate a certain “activation trajectory” then the strength of the network is its ability to generalize from these inputs with an input signal driving the reservoir model.

In a nutshell, the echo state network gets randomly assigned weights, so it is easy to train. The functionality is in the way that the network uses its inputs to generate learning results.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.