Quantum Noise-Aware RIS-Aided Wireless Networks Using Variational Encoding and Signal Stabilization

Abstract

This paper presents a noise-aware quantum-assisted framework for blockage prediction in reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-enabled wireless networks. The proposed architecture integrates a Quantum Base Station (QBS), a Quantum RIS (QRIS), and a mobile Quantum User Node (QUN). Visual information captured by an onboard RGB camera is amplitude-encoded into quantum states, while channel state observations are mapped into quantum rotation-encoded features. These hybrid inputs are processed through variational quantum circuits, enabling ternary classification of the link status. To address the inherent imperfections of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) hardware, the system explicitly models depolarizing and dephasing channels along direct and QRIS-assisted paths. A fidelity-aware training objective is employed to jointly minimize classification loss and quantum state degradation, with amplitude damping and synthetic noise injection enhancing robustness. Simulation results on a quantum-adapted version of the ViWi dataset demonstrate that the proposed hybrid quantum model achieves superior accuracy and stability under realistic noise conditions, outperforming baseline and single-modality approaches.