The realization of a Quantum Internet is expected to transform communication networks by enabling intrinsically secure information exchange and distributed quantum applications. However, the experimental study of large-scale quantum networks remains limited by the high cost and operational constraints of quantum hardware. To address this challenge, this paper presents the design of a platform conceived to support research and experimentation in the field of quantum networking. The proposed system provides an emulation environment that mirrors the behavior of a real quantum network, enabling researchers to test protocols and mechanisms through a set of quantum operation instructions accessible via an Application Programming Interface (API). Emulated quantum nodes can be deployed across physically distributed locations, using physical or virtual machines or virtualization containers, allowing experiments to reproduce realistic network conditions and inter-node interactions. This approach enables applications to be executed over a persistent, configurable, and interactive environment that integrates both quantum and classical communication layers. To validate the feasibility of the proposed design, a prototype has been built and used to demonstrate its operation through a multi-hop quantum teleportation proof of concept. The results confirm the viability and flexibility of the architecture, laying the foundation for a distributed framework that facilitates the development and evaluation of quantum network architectures, control mechanisms, and experimental use cases.
The realization of a Quantum Internet is expected to transform communication networks by enabling intrinsically secure information exchange and distributed quantum applications. However, the experimental study of large-scale quantum networks remains limited by the high cost and operational constraints of quantum hardware. To address this challenge, this paper presents the design of a platform conceived to support research and experimentation in the field of quantum networking. The proposed system provides an emulation environment that mirrors the behavior of a real quantum network, enabling researchers to test protocols and mechanisms through a set of quantum operation instructions accessible via an Application Programming Interface (API). Emulated quantum nodes can be deployed across physically distributed locations, using physical or virtual machines or virtualization containers, allowing experiments to reproduce realistic network conditions and inter-node interactions. This approach enables applications to be executed over a persistent, configurable, and interactive environment that integrates both quantum and classical communication layers. To validate the feasibility of the proposed design, a prototype has been built and used to demonstrate its operation through a multi-hop quantum teleportation proof of concept. The results confirm the viability and flexibility of the architecture, laying the foundation for a distributed framework that facilitates the development and evaluation of quantum network architectures, control mechanisms, and experimental use cases.
As quantum networking hardware remains costly and not yet widely accessible, simulation tools are essential for the design and evaluation of quantum network architectures and protocols. However, designing a scalable and computationally efficient quantum network simulator is intrinsically challenging: (i) quantum dynamics must be emulated on classical computing platforms while capturing the stateful and non-local nature of entanglement, a unique quantum resource without any classical networking analog; (ii) moreover, quantum networking is inherently hybrid, as protocol execution also fundamentally depends on classical signaling. This makes a tight and faithful co-simulation of quantum operations and classical message exchanges a core requirement. In this light, we present Q2NS, a modular and extensible quantum network simulator, built on top of ns-3, designed to seamlessly integrate quantum-network primitives with ns-3’s established classical protocol stack. Q2NS adopts a modular architecture that decouples protocol control logic from node- and channel-level operations, enabling rapid prototyping and adaptation across heterogeneous and evolving Quantum Internet scenarios. Q2NS natively supports multiple quantum state representations through a unified plug-in interface, allowing interchangeable state-vector, density-matrix, and stabilizer backends. We validate Q2NS through realistic use-case studies and comprehensive benchmarks, demonstrating superior computational efficiency over representative state-of-the-art alternatives, while preserving modeling flexibility. Finally, we provide a dedicated visualization tool that jointly captures physical and entanglement-enabled connectivity and supports entangled-state manipulations, facilitating an intuitive interpretation of entanglement dynamics and protocol behavior. Overall, Q2NS offers a flexible, open, and scalable simulation platform for advancing Quantum Internet research.
As quantum networking hardware remains costly and not yet widely accessible, simulation tools are essential for the design and evaluation of quantum network architectures and protocols. However, designing a scalable and computationally efficient quantum network simulator is intrinsically challenging: i) quantum dynamics must be emulated on classical computing platforms while capturing the stateful and non-local nature of entanglement, a quantum resource without any classical networking analog; ii) quantum networking is inherently hybrid, as protocol execution also fundamentally depends on classical signaling. This makes a tight and faithful co-simulation of quantum operations and classical message exchanges a core requirement. In this light, we present Q2NS, a modular and extensible quantum network simulator, built on top of ns-3, designed to seamlessly integrate quantum-network primitives with ns-3's established classical protocol stack. Q2NS adopts a modular architecture that decouples protocol control logic from node- and channel-level operations, enabling rapid prototyping and adaptation across heterogeneous and evolving Quantum Internet scenarios. Q2NS natively supports multiple quantum state representations through a unified interface, allowing interchangeable state-vector, density-matrix, and stabilizer backends. We validate Q2NS through realistic use-case studies and comprehensive benchmarks, demonstrating superior computational efficiency over representative state-of-the-art alternatives, while preserving modeling flexibility. Finally, we provide a dedicated visualization tool that jointly captures physical and entanglement-enabled connectivity and supports entangled-state manipulations, facilitating an intuitive interpretation of entanglement dynamics and protocol behavior. Q2NS offers a flexible, open, and scalable simulation platform for advancing Quantum Internet research.
As quantum networking hardware remains costly and not yet widely accessible, simulation tools are essential for the design and evaluation of quantum network architectures and protocols. However, designing a scalable and computationally efficient quantum network simulator is intrinsically challenging: (i) quantum dynamics must be emulated on classical computing platforms while capturing the stateful and non-local nature of entanglement, a unique quantum resource without any classical networking analog; (ii) moreover, quantum networking is inherently hybrid, as protocol execution also fundamentally depends on classical signaling. This makes a tight and faithful co-simulation of quantum operations and classical message exchanges a core requirement. In this light, we present Q2NS, a modular and extensible quantum network simulator, built on top of ns-3, designed to seamlessly integrate quantum-network primitives with ns-3’s established classical protocol stack. Q2NS adopts a modular architecture that decouples protocol control logic from node- and channel-level operations, enabling rapid prototyping and adaptation across heterogeneous and evolving Quantum Internet scenarios. Q2NS natively supports multiple quantum state representations through a unified plug-in interface, allowing interchangeable state-vector, density-matrix, and stabilizer backends. We validate Q2NS through realistic use-case studies and comprehensive benchmarks, demonstrating superior computational efficiency over representative state-of-the-art alternatives, while preserving modeling flexibility. Finally, we provide a dedicated visualization tool that jointly captures physical and entanglement-enabled connectivity and supports entangled-state manipulations, facilitating an intuitive interpretation of entanglement dynamics and protocol behavior. Overall, Q2NS offers a flexible, open, and scalable simulation platform for advancing Quantum Internet research.
The rise of quantum networks has revolutionized domains such as communication, sensing, and cybersecurity. Despite this progress, current quantum network systems remain limited in scale, are highly application-specific (e.g., for quantum key distribution), and lack a clear road map for global expansion. These limitations are largely driven by a shortage of skilled professionals, limited accessibility to quantum infrastructure, and the high complexity and cost associated with building and operating quantum hardware. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an open-access software-based quantum network virtualization platform designed to facilitate scalable and remote interaction with quantum hardware. The system is built around a cloud application that virtualizes the core hardware components of a lab-scale quantum network testbed, including the time tagger and optical switch, enabling users to perform coincidence counts of the photon entanglements while ensuring fair resource allocation. The fairness is ensured by employing the Hungarian Algorithm to allocate nearly equal effective entanglement rates among users. We provide implementation details and performance analysis from the perspectives of hardware, software, and cloud platform, which demonstrates the functionality and efficiency of the developed prototype.
Quantum network research, is exploring new networking protocols, physics-based hardware and novel experiments to demonstrate how quantum distribution will work over large distances. Current work explores much of these concepts in simulations, that are developed to understand how quantum networking will be set up and researchers can experiment virtually. Exposing flaws in network designs, like unsustainable topologies, or develop protocols that efficiently utilize network resources, simulators can also help assess whether workloads are balanced across virtual machines in the network. However, much of these simulation models come without reliable verification methods, for testing performance in real deployments. In this paper, we present a review of, to the best of our knowledge, currently used toolkits for modeling quantum networks. With these toolkits and standardized validation techniques, we can lay down the foundations for more accurate and reliable quantum network simulators.
Quantum network simulators are essential for the design and evaluation of quantum network architectures and protocols. However, developing an effective simulator is particularly challenging due to the stateful and non-local nature of quantum entanglement, which requires persistent state awareness and tight in-network coordination. Moreover, because quantum communication protocols inherently rely on classical signaling, a realistic simulator must seamlessly integrate classical and quantum communication primitives within a unified framework. In this work, we presentQ2NS, a modular and extensible quantum network simulation framework built on top of ns-3. The architectural design ofQ2NSenforces a clear separation of concerns between the operational functionalities of modules and entities and the overarching control logic, enabling easy adaptation to heterogeneous and rapidly evolving Quantum Internet paradigms while leveraging ns-3's mature classical networking stack. Additionally,Q2NSincludes a dedicated visualization tool to facilitate developing an intuitive understanding of entanglement-based quantum networking. This design enables accurate modeling of entanglement dynamics and protocol control logic, by providing a flexible, open, and scalable platform for advancing the Quantum Internet research.