Integrating Quantum Simulation for Quantum-Enhanced Classical Network Emulation

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel method that combines quantum network simulation with classical network emulation, enabling the testing of quantum communication protocols within existing network frameworks to explore near-term quantum network potentials.

Contribution

It introduces an integrated simulation approach combining QuNetSim with ComNetsEmu, allowing quantum protocols to be tested in classical network environments.

Findings

Successfully integrated quantum simulation into classical network emulation.

Demonstrated quantum protocol implementation for entanglement generation.

Showcased potential for quantum-enhanced data transmission techniques.

Abstract

We describe a method of investigating the near-term potential of quantum communication technology for communication networks from the perspective of current networks. For this, we integrate an instance of the quantum network simulator QuNetSim at the link layer into the communication network emulator ComNetsEmu. This novel augmented version of ComNetsEmu is thereby enabled to run arbitrary quantum protocols between any directly connected pair of network hosts. To give an example of the proposed method, we implement the link layer method of generating and storing entanglement while idle, to accelerate data transmission at later times using superdense coding.