Quantum multipath bonding for resilient connectivity

MPTCP · Hybrid QKD/PQC · Traffic Intelligence

Zi Humana Research presents a layered platform that bonds Multipath TCP transport, hybrid quantum key distribution with post-quantum cryptography, and cautious Bell-state traffic intelligence on standard IP networking — for maritime fleets, remote sites, disaster response, and enterprise backup paths.

10.5281/zenodo.22219465 Zi R&D Center

Laboratory throughput

250 Mbps

Bonded UDP paths in compose stack

Latency

15 ms

Engine present in the compose stack

Bonded paths

Starlink · 5G · Fiber laboratory mix

Bell-state shots

1024

Path-optimization laboratory snapshot

Our work

Quantum Multipath Bonding: MPTCP Transport, Hybrid QKD/PQC Security, and Bell-State Traffic Intelligence

Research Paper

Zi R&D Center · Zius Quantum R&D Center · AE Quantum Research Division

September 2026

Modern connectivity-dependent operations outgrow the single-path assumption of the original Internet Protocol suite. This article presents a layered platform bonding Multipath TCP, hybrid quantum security, and quantum intelligence for traffic management — with figures from the companion research dashboard and laboratory outputs of the bonding engine, Bell-state path picker, and BB84 sifting service.

MPTCPQKD · PQCBell-state

Four-plane stack — data, control, security, and intelligence

Figure 1

Architectural planes with graceful fallback

ArchitectureMPTCP

Laboratory bonded paths — Starlink, 5G, and Fiber

Figure 2

UDP bonding data plane inventory

BondingLab

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Results & figures

Table 1. Architectural planes and failure behaviour

No.	Plane	Responsibility	Graceful fallback
1.1	Data	Forwarding on the hot path	Remaining interface continues as ordinary IP
1.2	Control	MPTCP lifecycle and scheduling	Weighted round-robin or lowest-RTT
1.3	Security	QKD where available; PQC elsewhere	ML-KEM / ML-DSA only
1.4	Intelligence	Forecast and anomaly scores	Freeze last known-good weights

Table 2. Laboratory bonded-path inventory

No.	Name	Kind	Bind	Target
2.1	Starlink	satellite	127.0.0.1:9001	127.0.0.1:10001
2.2	5G	cellular	127.0.0.1:9002	127.0.0.1:10002
2.3	Fiber	terrestrial	127.0.0.1:9003	127.0.0.1:10003

Table 3. Laboratory console snapshot

Metric	Value	Source
Link	active	Bonding status service
Throughput	250 Mbps	Engine in compose stack
Latency	15 ms	Engine in compose stack
Health	healthy / quantum ready	Platform health probe

Four-plane stack — data, control, security, and intelligence layers — **Figure 1.** Four-plane stack — data forwarding, MPTCP control, hybrid QKD/PQC security, and traffic intelligence with independent graceful fallback.

Laboratory bonded paths for Starlink, 5G, and Fiber — **Figure 2.** Laboratory bonded-path inventory — Starlink, 5G, and Fiber UDP paths in the bonding engine compose stack.

Laboratory telemetry console snapshot — **Figure 3.** Laboratory telemetry — link status, throughput, latency, engine mode, and platform health from the research dashboard.

MPTCP scheduler weights by bandwidth and latency — **Figure 4.** Scheduler weights — weight_i = bandwidth_i / (latency_i + ε) with fast reinjection for head-of-line blocking.

Table 4. Illustrative satellite-QKD design parameters

Parameter	Target
Wavelength	1550 nm
Protocol	Decoy-state BB84
Abort threshold	QBER above ~11% (Shor-Preskill)

BB84 sifting service laboratory output — **Figure 5.** BB84 sifting — quantum security layer laboratory output from the sifting service.

Hybrid key management — QKD and PQC fallback — **Figure 6.** Hybrid key management — use QKD when a pass delivers key material; otherwise negotiate ML-KEM authenticated with ML-DSA; record which type protected the session.

Table 5. Bell-state path-optimization snapshot

Item	Value
Algorithm	bell_state_path_optimization
Shots	1024
Count of \|00⟩	479
Count of \|11⟩	545
Selected path	Fiber

Bell-state measurement counts for path optimization — **Figure 7.** Bell-state counts — laboratory path-optimization mechanism (not a quantum-advantage claim). Decision rule: if C(00) > C(11) select the first path, else the last.

Bell-state histogram from laboratory path picker — **Figure 8.** Bell-state histogram — laboratory output from the path picker service.

Table 6. Application mapping

Setting	Bonded mix	Security note
Maritime	LEO, GEO, coastal cellular	Continuity across beam and coastal hand-over
Remote mining	Satellite, 4G, site mesh	Hybrid QKD/PQC for operations data
Disaster response	Whatever links remain	Protect medical and command traffic
Enterprise backup	Fiber, 5G, satellite	Shift load before the primary path fails

Open access · Quantum Multipath Bonding

Zi R&D Center · Zi Humana · doi:10.5281/zenodo.22219465 · MPTCP · QKD · PQC · Borel Sigma Inc. venture

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Quantum multipath bonding for resilient connectivity

MPTCP · Hybrid QKD/PQC · Traffic Intelligence

Our work

Quantum Multipath Bonding: MPTCP Transport, Hybrid QKD/PQC Security, and Bell-State Traffic Intelligence

Four-plane stack — data, control, security, and intelligence

Laboratory bonded paths — Starlink, 5G, and Fiber

Results & figures

Open access · Quantum Multipath Bonding

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Research Paper

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