Benchmarking machine learning models for multi-class state recognition in double quantum dot data

Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) are a leading platform for scalable quantum processors. However, scaling to large arrays requires reliable, automated tuning strategies for devices' bootstrapping, calibration, and operation, with many tuning aspects depending on accurately identifying QD device states from charge-stability diagrams (CSDs). In this work, we present a comprehensive benchmarking study of four modern machine learning (ML) architectures for multi-class state recognition in double-QD CSDs. We evaluate their performance across different data budgets and normalization schemes using both synthetic and experimental data. We find that the more resource-intensive models -- U-Nets and visual transformers (ViTs) -- achieve the highest MSE score (defined as 1-MSE) on synthetic data (over 0.98) but fail to generalize to experimental data. MDNs are the most computationally efficient and exhibit highly stable training, but with substantially lower peak performance. CNNs offer the most favorable trade-off on experimental CSDs, achieving strong accuracy with two orders of magnitude fewer parameters than the U-Nets and ViTs. Normalization plays a nontrivial role: min-max scaling generally yields higher MSE scores but less stable convergence, whereas z-score normalization produces more predictable training dynamics but at reduced accuracy for most models. Overall, our study shows that CNNs with min-max normalization are a practical approach for QD CSDs.