Insider Brief
- Terra Quantum and Honda Research Institute Europe collaborated on using hybrid quantum computing methods to improve mobility systems in challenging conditions.
- In disaster scenarios, a timely response is vital and significantly impacts public safety.
- The quantum computing solution the team developed can account for numerous real-time variables and shows competitive efficiency results compared to traditional computing methods.
PRESS RELEASE — Terra Quantum, a world leader in the development of quantum computing technology, and Honda Research Institute Europe (HRI-EU), a renowned center for advanced research in intelligent systems, collaborated to develop new methods to shorten escape times in emergency situations.
In the joint project, Terra Quantum and HRI-EU have demonstrated the potential of hybrid quantum computing methods to improve mobility systems in challenging conditions.
“We are very pleased with the results of our collaboration with HRI-EU. This is just the start, we see the huge potential in applying Quantum Technologies in the Automotive and Mobility sectors.” – Markus Pflitsch, Founder and CEO at Terra Quantum.
Escape Routing
Over the past five decades, disaster occurrences have amplified fivefold, propelled by climate change, extreme weather patterns, among other factors. In disaster scenarios, a timely response is vital and significantly impacts public safety. However, the dynamic and unpredictable nature of these situations poses a severe challenge for technical solutions.
In collaborating, the potential use of hybrid quantum technologies for optimizing evacuation routes during emergencies was evaluated.
As part of the Proof of Concept (POC), an earthquake scenario was simulated on a realistic map of a smalltown. The novel solution demonstrated very promising results, predicting efficient dynamic escape routes for vehicles, and therefore minimizing evacuation times.
“Identifying realistic problems where quantum technologies may unfold their potential constitutes one of the biggest challenges in the field today. This work represents a promising step in that direction and shows how to employ hybrid quantum-classical learning architectures in a real-world use-case.”– Dr. Sebastian Schmitt, Principal Scientist at HRI-EU.
The developed quantum computing solution can account for numerous real-time variables and shows competitive efficiency results compared to traditional computing methods. It utilizes quantum machine learning and requires only local information to make decisions, which amounts to less than 1% of the map information — a crucial factor in an evolving and uncertain emergency scenario. The solutions are obtained from quantum simulations performed on classical computing hardware. This application can be extended to be executed on large-scale quantum computing hardware in the future.
After the success of this POC, Terra Quantum will continue to develop the solution, working towards the applicability in a broad range of scenarios in various city landscapes.
“This is the first step towards showcasing the performance of quantum machine learning to solve highly complex problems that have an enormous impact on people and planet. Very exciting to have worked with the HRI-EU team on improving evacuation times and robustness in emergency situations”- Vishal Shete, MD
More details can be found in the recent preprint paper on Arxiv.
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