With the continuous growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), the trend of increasing numbers of IoT devices will continue. To increase the network's capability to support a large number of active devices accessing a network concurrently, this work presents IoT-ResQ, a warm-started quantum annealing-based multi-device detector via quantum reverse annealing (RA). Unlike in typical quantum forward annealing (FA) protocol, IoT-ResQ's RA starts its search operation on a controllable candidate classical state, instead of a quantum superposition, and thus allows refined local quantum search around the initial state. This procedure can provide an opportunity of utilizing both conventional classical- and quantum-based detectors together in a hybrid synergy, to boost quantum optimization performance, mitigating the effect of quantum decoherence and noise on quantum hardware. In our evaluation, IoT-ResQ achieves nearly two to three orders of magnitude better BER and over 2X packet success rate with packet size of 32-byte compared to other quantum and conventional detectors at SNR 9 dB to support 48 active IoT devices with QPSK modulation (implying 48,000 deployed devices with 0.1% wake-up radio rate at a time), requiring ≈ 140 μs pure compute time for detection.
With the continuous growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), the trend of increasing numbers of IoT devices will continue. To increase the network's capability to support a large number of active devices accessing a network concurrently, this work presents IoT-ResQ, a warm-started quantum annealing-based multi-device detector via quantum reverse annealing (RA). Unlike in typical quantum forward annealing (FA) protocol, IoT-ResQ's RA starts its search operation on a controllable candidate classical state, instead of a quantum superposition, and thus allows refined local quantum search around the initial state. This procedure can provide an opportunity of utilizing both conventional classical- and quantum-based detectors together in a hybrid synergy, to boost quantum optimization performance, mitigating the effect of quantum decoherence and noise on quantum hardware. In our evaluation, IoT-ResQ achieves nearly two to three orders of magnitude better BER and over 2X packet success rate with packet size of 32-byte compared to other quantum and conventional detectors at SNR 9 dB to support 48 active IoT devices with QPSK modulation (implying 48,000 deployed devices with 0.1% wake-up radio rate at a time), requiring ≈ 140 μs pure compute time for detection.
Quantum Annealing (QA)-accelerated MIMO detection is an emerging research approach in the context of NextG wireless networks. The opportunity is to enable large MIMO systems and thus improve wireless performance. The approach aims to leverage QA to expedite the computation required for theoretically optimal but computationally-demanding Maximum Likelihood detection to overcome the limitations of the currently deployed linear detectors. This paper presents X-ResQ, a QA-based MIMO detector system featuring fine-grained quantum task parallelism that is uniquely enabled by the Reverse Annealing (RA) protocol. Unlike prior designs, X-ResQ has many desirable system properties for a parallel QA detector and has effectively improved detection performance as more qubits are assigned. In our evaluations on a state-of-the-art quantum annealer, fully parallel X-ResQ achieves near-optimal throughput (over 10 bits/s/Hz) for 4×6 MIMO with 16-QAM using six levels of parallelism with 240 qubits and 220μs QA compute time, achieving 2.5--5× gains compared against other tested detectors. For more comprehensive evaluations, we implement and evaluate X-ResQ in the non-quantum digital setting. This non-quantum X-ResQ demonstration showcases the potential to realize ultra-large 1024×1024 MIMO, significantly outperforming other MIMO detectors, including the state-of-the-art RA detector classically implemented in the same way.
Quantum Annealing (QA)-accelerated MIMO detection is an emerging research approach in the context of NextG wireless networks. The opportunity is to enable large MIMO systems and thus improve wireless performance. The approach aims to leverage QA to expedite the computation required for theoretically optimal but computationally-demanding Maximum Likelihood detection to overcome the limitations of the currently deployed linear detectors. This paper presents X-ResQ, a QA-based MIMO detector system featuring flexible parallelism that is uniquely enabled by quantum Reverse Annealing (RA). Unlike prior designs, X-ResQ has many desirable parallel QA system properties and has effectively improved detection performance as more qubits are assigned. In our evaluations on a state-of-the-art quantum annealer, fully parallel X-ResQ achieves near-optimal throughput for 4 × 6 MIMO with 16-QAM using approx. 240 qubits achieving 2.5–5× gains compared against other classical and quantum detectors. We also implement and evaluate X-ResQ in the non-quantum digital setting for more comprehensive evaluations. This classical X-ResQ showcases the potential to realize ultra-large 1024 × 1024 MIMO, significantly outperforming other MIMO detectors, including the state-of-the-art RA detector classically implemented in the same way.
Embedding Service Function Chain (SFC) into the massive and resource-hungry Internet of Things (IoT) substrate graph is a critical optimization research problem. Unfortunately, the classical Integer Linear Programming (ILP) formulation for such problems is usually NP-hard. Thus, this research study presses on the need to go beyond the realms and employ Quantum Annealing (QA) to speed up the computation. To comply, we reformulate the SFC embedding problem into IoT graphs as Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) format and propose a hybrid warm start quantum annealing (WSQA) optimization technique. Simulation results show that our proposed WSQA can improve resource utilization, accelerate computing time, and achieve a better scalability success rate at solving large-scale SFC deployment compared to standalone QA. Further along the line, this research inspires the application of quantum optimization for resource allocation in next-generation networks even with the limited availability of qubits.
The key features of 5G, such as ultra-reliable low latency (URLLC) and massive machine-type communication (mMTC), are designed to address the need for low latency and the ability to connect a large number of devices in the IoT context. To support these constraints, mobile devices transmit information without previously establishing a connection with the base station (BS). This requires the Base Station to detect in real-time the active users (process known as Active User Detection (AUD)). With classical processors, one can employ the Maximum Likelihood (ML) method (the optimal detector, but suffers from high complexity and delay), or suboptimal ones (which are simpler, but less reliable). Meanwhile, quantum algorithms, particularly Durr and Hoyer (DHA) algorithm, addressing minimum searching problems, can significantly reduce complexity while keeping good performances. However, these algorithms were designed for generic problems, and their initialization and parameterization are blindly done. Nonetheless, we can have access to prior information on the system’s behavior. Therefore, in this paper, we aim to adapt and improve these quantum algorithms by using prior knowledge on the system for the AUD problem. We first propose a novel algorithm, the Improved Iterative Minimum Searching Algorithm (IIMSA) where we define more efficiently the parameters. Then, further enhancements of IIMSA are obtained thanks to a better initialization of the algorithms by exploiting classical preprocessing of the received signals with classical Conventional Correlation Receiver (CCR) or Zero Forcing (ZF). The obtained results show that these proposed algorithms operate more efficiently (i.e., less complexity with better accuracy).
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) enables information-theoretic secure key exchange by exploiting fundamental quantum phenomena such as superposition and no-cloning. Classical QKD protocols (e.g., BB84) guarantee that any eavesdropping attempt introduces detectable disturbances, but they typically assume stable, high-quality channels and unconstrained devices. In contrast, Internet of Things (IoT) networks present a radically different environment: devices have limited processing power, minimal onboard memory, strict energy budgets, and communicate over highly variable wireless links subject to interference and rapid fading. These constraints lead to elevated quantum bit error rates (QBER), frequent key reconciliation failures, and prohibitive energy costs, all of which jeopardize practical QKD deployment. To address these challenges, we propose an AI-powered QKD protocol specifically optimized for IoT scenarios. Our approach integrates three AI modules: (1) a gradient-boosted regression channel estimator that predicts instantaneous link transmittance using lightweight sensor data and historical photon counts; (2) a reinforcement learning (RL) agent that adaptively tunes photon intensity, basis-selection probability, and reconciliation block size to balance key rate and error rate; and (3) a convolutional neural network (CNN) classifier that selects the optimal Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) code rate based on real-time noise characteristics. We simulate a star-topology IoT network of 50 battery-powered devices communicating over 5 km polarization-encoded links with realistic urban loss (0.1–0.3 dB/km) and environmental noise. Compared against a static BB84 baseline, our AI-enhanced protocol reduces average QBER from 4.5% to 2.9%, increases secure key rate from 12.5 kbps to 16.0 kbps, lowers latency by 22%, and reduces energy consumption per key bit by 18%. These improvements persist across channel conditions and device heterogeneity, demonstrating robustness.
The integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) with quantum communication networks opens the door to transformative applications, including massive machine communication, virtual reality (VR), the Metaverse, and a wide range of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven technologies. The Quantum IoT (QIoT) meets these demands by enabling ultrasecure communication, advanced data processing, and enhanced sensing capabilities. By leveraging quantum principles, such as entanglement and teleportation, QIoT achieves superior efficiency and security compared to traditional IoT systems. As a pioneering quantum computing and communication convergence, QIoT is expected to experience significant growth over the next decade, driven by rapid advancements in quantum technologies. However, QIoT networks face critical challenges, such as energy efficiency (EE) issues, memory limitations caused by qubit decoherence, and substantial losses during quantum communication, including the exponential decay of entanglement success over quantum optical channels. To address these challenges, we propose an optimal decoherence-aware entanglement generation framework to maximize EE in QIoT networks. Using Dinkelbach’s method and Lagrangian analysis, the framework reformulates the resource allocation (RA) problem as a nonlinear fractional programming model, which is solved iteratively through linear programming techniques. This approach ensures energy-efficient entanglement generation rates (EGRs) while maintaining reliable quantum communication. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed framework, highlighting its advantages and providing valuable insights for the development of QIoT systems.