A Measurement Plane for Quantum Networking
It addresses the lack of a dedicated measurement coordination plane in quantum networking testbeds, reducing manual effort for experimentalists.
The paper introduces a Measurement Plane for quantum networking testbeds, a distributed framework that coordinates measurements and collects data across heterogeneous devices, achieving up to 98% visibility interference in entanglement distribution experiments.
Quantum networking testbeds lack a distinct plane for coordinating distributed measurements and collecting experimental data across heterogeneous devices. To address this gap, we present the Measurement Plane, a dedicated plane that complements the data, control, and management planes rather than replacing or extending their pipelines. The contribution is presented as a distributed framework that organizes measurement functions into four layers: application, experiment coordination, capability, and resource agents. Our design separates user workflows from device-specific control. We implemented the framework as containerized microservices connected through publish--subscribe messaging, and validated it on a two-node quantum networking setup connected by an optical network. The framework successfully coordinated remote nodes to execute coincidence measurement and polarization entanglement distribution experiments with visibility interference of up to 98 percent. This evaluation demonstrated the effectiveness of the framework for supporting complex, distributed quantum experiments, enabling online measurement and feedback, and significantly reducing manual configuration and execution effort.