Nowadays, high security levels are required to transmit critical information for government, private and personal sectors. As a countermeasure, the Quantum Key Distribution systems are the best option in order to protect this information because it provides unconditional security. In addition, increasing the transmission distance is a highlight. Therefore, the Free-Space Optical Quantum Key Distribution systems (FSO-QKD) present an innovative way for sharing secure information between two parties located at ground stations, spacecraft or aircraft. However, these scenarios present several challenges regarding the hardware, protocols and techniques used that must be solved in order to enhance the performance parameters (security level, distance link, final secret key rate, among others) for any QKD system; although, in particular, a high transmission performance is required for both the classical and quantum channels. These issues impose the roadmap and trends in the research, academic and manufacturing sectors around the world.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.