arXiv:2503.21085 · npj Quantum Information

Robust quantum control using reinforcement learning from demonstration

Shengyong Li, Yidian Fan, Xiangyang Li, Xinhui Ruan, Qianchuan Zhao, Zhihui Peng, Re-Bing Wu, Jing Zhang, Pengtao Song

Published Jul 25, 2025• 12 citations

Abstract

Quantum control requires high-precision and robust control pulses to ensure optimal system performance. However, control sequences generated with a system model may suffer from model bias, leading to low fidelity. While model-free reinforcement learning (RL) methods have been developed to avoid such biases, training an RL agent from scratch can be time-consuming, often taking hours to gather enough samples for convergence. This challenge has hindered the broad application of RL techniques to larger and more complex quantum control issues, limiting their adaptability. In this work, we use Reinforcement Learning from Demonstration (RLfD) to leverage the control sequences generated with system models and further optimize them with RL to avoid model bias. By avoiding learning from scratch and starting with reasonable control pulse shapes, this approach can increase sample efficiency by reducing the number of samples, which can significantly reduce the training time. Thus, this method can effectively handle pulse shapes that are discretized into more than 1000 pieces without compromising final fidelity. We have simulated the preparation of several high-fidelity non-classical states using the RLfD method. We also find that the training process is more stable when using RLfD. In addition, this method is suitable for fast gate calibration using reinforcement learning.

DOI: 10.1038/s41534-025-01065-2

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