Quantum Mission Planning Challenges (QMPC) is a DLR project funded by the Quantum Computing Initiative (QCI) for exploring Quantum Computation with the goal of solving concrete Mission Planning related problems.
Mission Planning typically involves constrained optimization problems that can be of very large sizes, e.g. when creating schedules for large satellite constellations. Classical solvers, however, very often scale badly with input size. As quantum computation currently sees a lot of progress there is hope that one may solve large problem instances using quantum algorithms on noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices (NISQ), quantum annealers or future large gate-based quantum computers.
The goal of QMPC is to develop quantum algorithms for specific realistic Mission Planning problems that can be run on current and future quantum computers. Besides this it tries to integrate these solutions into the operational landscape at GSOC as well as promote quantum computation in the area of space craft control.
Part of QMPC is to promote quantum computation work on conceptually similar problems in the industry. Therefore, QMPC is looking for an industry partner working on Decentralized Energy System Scheduling, an area which provides specific problem that share a lot of characteristics with Mission Planning problems, e.g. the goal of optimizing schedules and the types of constraints that they need to obey.
Currently, public calls for bids are in preparation at the QCI.
The following are publications at GSOC that concern topics close to QMPC.