Quantum SVR for Chlorophyll Concentration Estimation in Water with Remote Sensing

Abstract

The increasing availability of quantum computers motivates researching their potential capabilities in enhancing the performance of data analysis algorithms. Similarly as in other research communities, also in Remote Sensing (RS) it is not yet defined how its applications can benefit from the usage of quantum computing. This paper proposes a formulation of the Support Vector Regression (SVR) algorithm that can be executed by D-Wave quantum computers. Specifically, the SVR is mapped to a Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) optimization problem that is solved with Quantum Annealing (QA). The algorithm is tested on two different types of computing environments offered by D-Wave: The Advantage system, which directly embeds the problem into the Quantum Processing Unit (QPU), and a Hybrid solver that employs both classical and quantum computing resources. For the evaluation, we considered a biophysical variable estimation problem with RS data. The experimental results show that the proposed quantum SVR implementation can achieve comparable or in some cases better results than the classical implementation. This work is one of the first attempts to provide insight into how QA could be exploited and integrated in future RS workflows based on Machine Learning algorithms.

Authors 5

1. Edoardo Pasetto Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University · University of Iceland · Jülich Supercomputing Centre · University of Trento

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento, Via Sommarive 9, I-38123, Trento, Italy

   Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Julich, Germany, and the

   Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Jülich, Germany and the

   RWTH Aachen University, D-52056 Aachen, Germany

   University of Iceland, 107 Reykjavik, Iceland, and the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Julich, Germany

   the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Jülich, Germany

2. Morris Riedel Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University · University of Iceland · Jülich Supercomputing Centre · University of Trento

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento, Via Sommarive 9, I-38123, Trento, Italy

   Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Julich, Germany, and the

   Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Jülich, Germany and the

   RWTH Aachen University, D-52056 Aachen, Germany

   University of Iceland, 107 Reykjavik, Iceland, and the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Julich, Germany

   the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Jülich, Germany

3. Farid Melgani Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University · University of Iceland · Jülich Supercomputing Centre · University of Trento

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento, Via Sommarive 9, I-38123, Trento, Italy

   Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Julich, Germany, and the

   Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Jülich, Germany and the

   RWTH Aachen University, D-52056 Aachen, Germany

   University of Iceland, 107 Reykjavik, Iceland, and the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Julich, Germany

   the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Jülich, Germany

4. Kristel F. L. Michielsen Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University · University of Iceland · Jülich Supercomputing Centre · University of Trento

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento, Via Sommarive 9, I-38123, Trento, Italy

   Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Julich, Germany, and the

   Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Jülich, Germany and the

   RWTH Aachen University, D-52056 Aachen, Germany

   University of Iceland, 107 Reykjavik, Iceland, and the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Julich, Germany

   the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Jülich, Germany

5. Gabriele Cavallaro Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University · University of Iceland · Jülich Supercomputing Centre · University of Trento

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento, Via Sommarive 9, I-38123, Trento, Italy

   Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Julich, Germany, and the

   Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Jülich, Germany and the

   RWTH Aachen University, D-52056 Aachen, Germany

   University of Iceland, 107 Reykjavik, Iceland, and the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Julich, Germany

   the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Wilhelm-Johnen Straße 52428 Jülich, Germany