Research Questions in Applying Quantum Computing to Systems Design

Model-Based Systems Engineering and our ability to computationally model all manner of design feature is pushing Systems Design into new and exciting areas. Design spaces are becoming increasingly hyper-dimensional featuring a vast set of design options and constraints. This vastness is often a challenge for classical computation resulting in numerous techniques to efficiently explore the design space. However, these introduce uncertainty concerning the derived solution as the design space is not evaluated in its entirety. In this paper, we perform an empirical study applying Grover's quantum computing algorithm for unstructured search was applied to an 8 x 8 tiling problem. Achieving this evidenced quantum computing's application for Systems Design problems and the computational gains it can bring. In addition, nine research questions in applying quantum computation to Systems Design were elicited. Answering these research questions will step us towards quantum-enabled Systems Design.