Quantum Communication Assisted MAC Protocol

Quantum mechanics has been around since the early 1900s and computers made their first appearance in the late 1930s. In the decades after that, the two came together to bring about quantum computing. A sub field of quantum computing is quantum communications, the ability to transmit a quantum state from one place to another. This communication takes place between two entities. Communication over a classic network involves many entities each vying for network time. This is done through various network protocols, one of them being Medium Access Control (MAC). Although quantum computing is currently a one-to-one medium, it's properties can be used to assist the MAC protocol to enhance it's current abilities. In this thesis, we propose two different quantum communication assisted MAC protocols to achieve shared communication over a classic network. These protocols are based on quantum entanglement principles and contention-free collision avoidance algorithms.