A reactive agent operating in a complex environment must classify its perceived state and select an action under uncertainty. This uncertainty may arise from sensor noise, ambiguous perceptual configurations, or the limited separability of the action regions induced by the agent's policy. We propose a hybrid classical-quantum architecture for a reactive agent in which the perceived state, represented as a classical sensor vector, is mapped onto a quantum feature space. In this space, learned conceptualizations or rule-defined perceptual regions are represented as reference states, and similarities between the current perception and such references are used to support action selection. The architecture is evaluated on a public wall-following robot dataset. Two implementations are considered: (i) a quantum-kernel classifier based on ZZ feature maps and (ii) an illustrative quantum circuit that explicitly encodes sensor conditions into qubits and performs measurement-based action selection. The experimental evaluation is intended as an offline proxy for reactive decision-making, not as a demonstration of a complete closed-loop robotic controller or of quantum advantage. The results show that the proposed framework can represent perceptual ambiguity and connect quantum-state measurement to the selection of discrete reactive actions.
A reactive agent operating in a complex environment must classify its perceived state and select an action under uncertainty. This uncertainty may arise from sensor noise, ambiguous perceptual configurations, or the limited separability of the action regions induced by the agent's policy. We propose a hybrid classical-quantum architecture for a reactive agent in which the perceived state, represented as a classical sensor vector, is mapped onto a quantum feature space. In this space, learned conceptualizations or rule-defined perceptual regions are represented as reference states, and similarities between the current perception and such references are used to support action selection. The architecture is evaluated on a public wall-following robot dataset. Two implementations are considered: (i) a quantum-kernel classifier based on ZZ feature maps and (ii) an illustrative quantum circuit that explicitly encodes sensor conditions into qubits and performs measurement-based action selection. The experimental evaluation is intended as an offline proxy for reactive decision-making, not as a demonstration of a complete closed-loop robotic controller or of quantum advantage. The results show that the proposed framework can represent perceptual ambiguity and connect quantum-state measurement to the selection of discrete reactive actions.
Decision-making in autonomous agents requires consideration of physical constraints, safety, uncertainty, learned experience, and mission objectives. Inspired by quantum cognition, this paper presents a hybrid quantum–classical architecture that organizes these aspects into four functions: physical reality, experience, machine conscience, and attention. Physical reality constrains the available actions, experience proposes suitable alternatives, machine conscience evaluates them against predefined safety and operational criteria, and attention selects the final action. Classical checks enforce hard constraints and score soft preferences, while Grover circuits search for actions meeting rule-based thresholds. A conditional Quantum Circuit Born Machine (QCBM) provides learned action preferences. A classical hierarchy gives priority to emergencies, feasibility, risk, and uncertainty, then selects an eligible action using the integration score. The QCBM is trained offline on 2147 examples from a 3060-example teacher-labelled dataset, with the remaining examples reserved for validation and testing. On 466 held-out examples, the QCBM reproduced the teacher-defined preferred action with 83.26% accuracy. In repeated fixed-state replays, all constraint-aware policies had zero hard-constraint violations and full emergency-STOP compliance. The full hierarchy selected STOP less often than the hard-masked QCBM, with the same observed compliance. Finite-sampling experiments showed that higher shot counts reduced probability error and generally brought decisions closer to those obtained from the exact simulated probability distribution. Overall, the results demonstrate that quantum generative learning and Grover-based quantum search can be integrated into a constraint-preserving decision architecture. The results establish functional integration under simulation rather than quantum advantage or physical robot performance. They also demonstrate how quantum technologies can support autonomous decision making and provide a basis for further research in quantum robotics.
The fusion of quantum computing and robotics represents a frontier in computational intelligence, promising to overcome the limitations of classical sensor fusion methods in precision, scalability, and real-time adaptability. This study proposes a hybrid quantum–classical framework designed to enhance the integration and synchronization of LiDAR, visual, and inertial sensor data, ultimately improving robotic perception and spatial awareness in complex environments. The model employs quantum-assisted optimization techniques to handle high-dimensional uncertainty, noise propagation, and data redundancy challenges inherent in multi-sensor processing. By leveraging variational quantum circuits and classical machine learning optimizers, the hybrid model achieves efficient data correlation and error minimization during sensor alignment. Benchmark experiments were conducted to evaluate the efficiency and precision of the proposed quantum-assisted sensor fusion system relative to conventional data integration algorithms. The findings reveal that hybrid quantum–classical systems yield substantial improvements in localization accuracy, temporal synchronization, and resilience to sensor noise, while maintaining computational feasibility within near-term quantum devices. This work highlights the potential of quantum-enhanced perception frameworks to accelerate the next generation of autonomous robotics, providing a foundation for adaptive control, intelligent navigation, and mission-critical decision-making under uncertainty.
Quantum computing offers a new approach to the problem modeling and solving. This paper deals with the quantum modeling of reactive agents. It also proposes a quantum algorithm to implement the subsumption architecture, widely used by reactive agents, particularly in robotics. This work shows the contribution of the formalism proposed by quantum mechanics to the modeling and the proof of certain properties of the agent behavior. After, the definition of the reactive agent state modeling, the paper suggests a behavior modeling approach based on two steps for subsumption architecture. The first one models the preset behavior that links each action to the perception states. The second one determines, among several actuated actions, the one that the robot must achieve. The subsumption architecture raises the challenge of modeling hierarchical priority of actions. To this end, a multipartite entanglement is used in the second step. More precisely, the paper proposes and generalizes a W-state circuit in order to be used for modeling hierarchical priority actions and controlling the robot accordingly. The result of both steps provides a formal model that links the robot’s perception (input) to the actions (output), with respect to the subsumption architecture. The proposed model of agent is simulated using IBM quantum computer. The simulation shows that the model can either be served as a control unit of the robot (CU) to obtain the suitable action or to simulate the robot behavior.
This study proposes an HCQA for designing optimal Quantum Sensor Circuits (QSCs) to address complex quantum physics problems. The HCQA integrates computational intelligence techniques by leveraging a Deep Q-Network (DQN) for learning and policy optimization, enhanced by a quantum-based action selection mechanism based on the Q-values. A quantum circuit encodes the agent current state using Ry gates, and then creates a superposition of possible actions. Measurement of the circuit results in probabilistic action outcomes, allowing the agent to generate optimal QSCs by selecting sequences of gates that maximize the Quantum Fisher Information (QFI) while minimizing the number of gates. This computational intelligence-driven HCQA enables the automated generation of entangled quantum states, specifically the squeezed states, with high QFI sensitivity for quantum state estimation and control. Evaluation of the HCQA on a QSC that consists of two qubits and a sequence of Rx, Ry, and S gates demonstrates its efficiency in generating optimal QSCs with a QFI of 1. This work highlights the synergy between AI-driven learning and quantum computation, illustrating how intelligent agents can autonomously discover optimal quantum circuit designs for enhanced sensing and estimation tasks.
Quantum computing offers potential computational advantages, yet its integration into autonomous decision-making systems remains largely unexplored. This paper addresses the need for a unified framework that systematically combines quantum computation with agent-based artificial intelligence. We examine how quantum technologies can enhance the capabilities of autonomous agents and, conversely, how agentic AI can support the advancement of quantum systems. We analyze both directions of this synergy and present conceptual and technical foundations for future quantum–agentic platforms. Our work introduces a formal definition of quantum agents and outlines architectures that integrate quantum computing with agent-based systems. As concrete proof-of-concept implementations, we develop and evaluate three quantum agent prototypes: (i) a Grover-based decision agent for quantum search-driven action selection, (ii) a variational quantum reinforcement learning agent for adaptive policy learning in a multi-armed bandit setting, and (iii) an adaptive quantum image encryption agent that autonomously selects encryption strategies based on entropy-driven feedback. These prototypes demonstrate practical realizations of quantum agency in decision-making, learning, and security contexts under NISQ-era constraints. Furthermore, we discuss application domains including quantum-enhanced optimization, hybrid quantum–classical orchestration, autonomous quantum workflow management, and secure quantum information processing. By bridging these fields, we introduce a structured theoretical and architectural framework for quantum–agentic systems, providing formal definitions, system models, and early operational prototypes that illustrate the feasibility of quantum-enhanced agency under NISQ constraints.