Quantum-Inspired Robust Networking Model With Multiverse Co-Evolution for Scale-Free IoT

The robustness of scale-free Internet of Things (IoT) topology is seriously affected by malicious attacks. Improving the tolerance to node failures is critical to the stability of IoT systems. Heuristic algorithms, especially genetic algorithms, enhance the stability of network topology through the evolution of population chromosomes. However, the loss of genetic diversity makes the optimization easily fall into local optimum. Although the problem can be alleviated by adjusting population size and genetic probability, the genetic diversity is still not guaranteed in the limited number of iterations. Inspired by the quantum superposition that simultaneously operates on an exponential number of states, we propose a quantum-inspired robust networking model with multiverse co-evolution for the scale-free IoT (Q-Robust). This model designs quantum chromosomes with double-chain structures to represent the connections between all nodes. Then we present the quantum measurement method of quantum chromosomes based on the degree distribution of nodes. Furthermore, this model constructs a primary-secondary quantum multiverse co-evolution mechanism to improve the convergence efficiency of topology evolution. The experimental results show that the topology robustness optimized by Q-Robust is about 60% and 10% higher than the initial topology and the state-of-the-art topology evolution algorithm, respectively.