Variational Quantum Optimization Benchmark Suite for Airline Crew Pairing and More

Abstract

We introduce a set of open-source packages that form a highly extensible framework for quantum optimization. One design goal of the system is the inclusion of a command line based configuration system for setting up experiments. The possible options are derived using well-known Python packages and presented to the user intuitively, allowing the configuration of repeatable variational quantum optimization experiments. We give an example of using the system through the Airline Crew Pairing problem, a highly relevant industrial problem, and the MaxCut problem, for which instances of manageable size are readily available.