Quantum-Enhanced Matching Mechanism for Secure and Efficient Power IoT Data Trading

Abstract

The exponential growth of power IoT data has created immense potential for intelligent energy management, but it also presents critical challenges in achieving secure and efficient data trading. In particular, emerging data trading scenarios demand support for range nearest neighbor matching, which current schemes fail to address. This paper proposes a novel quantum trading matching scheme tailored for power data markets, which, for the first time, supports range nearest neighbor matching while balancing accuracy, efficiency, and privacy. To improve matching efficiency, we design a quantum private query (QPQ) mechanism based on a bidirectional sliding window (BSW), which replaces traditional linear search with dynamic range expansion. Furthermore, to ensure strong privacy and security in real-world scenarios, we develop a two-layer QPQ framework that performs data feature matching and identity retrieval separately, supported by a customized key distribution strategy. Our solution resists quantum attacks and significantly reduces computational overhead. At the same time, by utilizing non-ideal photon sources, it offers a practical and privacy-preserving solution for large-scale power data trading and matching.