Dynamic Entanglement Packet Scheduling for Quantum Networks
2026-05-27 • Networking and Internet Architecture
Networking and Internet Architecture
AI summaryⓘ
The authors study how to share quantum entanglement among multiple users in a network. They note that existing methods use fixed schedules to allocate network resources, which can be rigid when events happen unpredictably. To improve this, they propose a new scheduling method that adapts online by making decisions to schedule, delay, retry, or cancel requests as needed. Their simulations show that this new method works better, completing tasks faster and handling heavy network loads more smoothly than the old static approach.
quantum entanglementquantum networksTime Division Multiple Access (TDMA)scheduling algorithmsEarliest Deadline First (EDF)dynamic schedulingnetwork throughputcompletion ratiostochastic processesresource allocation
Authors
Quang-Phong Tran, Claudio Cicconetti, Marco Conti, Andrea Passarella
Abstract
Sharing entanglement among multiple users remains a central challenge for scalable quantum networks. Recent work proposed an on-demand entanglement packet architecture in which a controller uses a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) approach to allocate network resources. Quantum nodes are assigned a periodic schedule that probabilistically fulfills application requests for end-to-end entanglements. The schedule is recomputed periodically using well-known algorithms, such as Earliest Deadline First (EDF). However, a static schedule offers limited flexibility when outcomes are stochastic and arrivals are asynchronous. To overcome this limitation, we propose an online scheduler that dynamically schedules, defers, retries, or drops entanglement distribution reservations. In our simulations, the dynamic scheduler achieves lower completion time, higher completion ratio, and higher throughput than the static baseline. Furthermore, when the network is overloaded, the dynamic scheduler continues to construct deadline-feasible schedules and degrades gracefully.