Investigation of Quantum Algorithms for Military Cargo Transport Problems

Military cargo transport is a fundamental activity of the United States armed forces that requires a great deal of planning and consideration of many factors including resource allocation and specifically timed actions. Any delays in logistics support can have a detrimental effect to our nation’s military efforts.  For this reason, significant analysis is needed to ensure all contingencies are considered so that interruptions can be minimized. Current modeling approaches are effective but limited in their timeframes and geographic regions of consideration due to limited computing capability and the algorithmic methods used to analyze these activities.  As these factors increase so does the computational time required, resulting in impractical solutions for effective operations.  In an effort to improve the performance of these military cargo transport models, the Air Force has requested that quantum algorithms and quantum computer hardware be evaluated to determine at what problem complexity scale a quantum advantage can be achieved, and if it can be had with the current computing hardware commercially available. This effort will determine the key planning factors (constraints) based on the problem complexity, what algorithmic approach (quantum or Hybrid) is best suited for efficient calculations (i.e., where can quantum advantage be realized), and what quantum hardware architecture is required to exercise this approach.