Oscillator-based optimization: design, emulation, and implementation

The emergence of digital computers has profoundly reshaped our interactions with technology and the processing of information. Despite excelling in data processing and arithmetics, these computers face limitations in tackling complex nondeterministic-polynomial (NP) problems. In response, researchers have started searching for new computational paradigms that possess the natural tendency of solving these problems. Oscillator-based optimizers are one such paradigm, where the idea is to exploit the parallelism of oscillators networks in order to efficiently solve NP problems. This involves a process of mapping a given optimization task to a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization program and then mapping the resulting program onto an inter-oscillator coupling circuit encoding its coefficients. This paper presents a comprehensive approach to constructing oscillator-based optimizers, offering both the rationale for employing oscillator networks and formulas for linking optimization coefficients to inter-oscillator coupling. Here, we cover most aspects of oscillator-based optimization starting from the design of the network up to its technical implementation. Moreover, we provide a platform-independent wave digital algorithm, which allows for emulating our network’s behavior in a highly parallel fashion. Graphical Abstract