Quantum-Enhanced Transaction Scheduling with Reduced Complexity via Solving QUBO Iteratively using a Locking Mechanism

In this work, we investigate the problem of transaction scheduling under conflict constraints and present a hybrid quantum-classical approach to its optimisation.Our proposed algorithm uses the concept of locking the transaction to solve QUBO iteratively, which explores the search space over the different sets of transactions for efficient scheduling.Experiments have been conducted using gate-based quantum simulators with QAOA and classical solvers such as simulated annealing.Our findings suggest that reduced problem formulations (via locking mechanism) for a certain level of problem complexity significantly enhance the solvability of scheduling instances, potentially making them accessible to near-term quantum devices.