Communication system technology for demonstration of BB84 quantum key distribution in optical aircraft downlinks

Moll, Francesc; Nauerth, Sebastian; Fuchs, Christian; Horwath, Joachim; Rau, Markus; Weinfurter, Harald

doi:10.1117/12.929739

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 14 publications

(22 reference statements)

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“…The flight plan for the day was selected from a list of possible options derived for a previous project involving flight campaigns [11]. The possible flight paths consisted of the following options:…”

Section: Flight Campaignmentioning

confidence: 99%

Channel characterization for air-to-ground free-space optical communication links

Shortt

Giggenbach

Calvo

et al. 2014

Free-Space Laser Communication and Atmospheric Propagation XXVI

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The next five to ten years will see more and more free-space optical communication systems being put into practical use as technologies and techniques continue to mature, particularly in the area of mobile and satellite-to-ground communications. To meet the increasing demand of these types of systems, it is necessary to gain a deeper understanding of the various atmospheric effects at play in a free-space optical link in an effort to mitigate their impact on operational systems. In that context, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has conducted a number of field trials between a Dornier 228 aircraft and its ground station in Oberpfaffenhofen, just south of Munich, Germany. These field trials have involved the concurrent measurement of atmospheric turbulence using three different techniques: pupil plane imaging, focus spot imaging and Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensing. To ensure the accurate synchronization of measurements between the three techniques, a concerted effort was made in the selection of computer hardware and the development of image acquisition software. Furthermore, power measurements in up-and downlink have been taken to be further correlated with the 3 primary instruments. It is envisioned that the resulting analysis of these measurements shall contribute to the implementation of new adaptive optics techniques to facilitate various air and space communication links. This paper shall describe the overall experiment design as well as some of the design decisions that led to the final experiment configuration.

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Section: Flight Campaignmentioning

confidence: 99%

Channel characterization for air-to-ground free-space optical communication links

Shortt

Giggenbach

Calvo

et al. 2014

Free-Space Laser Communication and Atmospheric Propagation XXVI

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“…It is, thus, crucial that the link efficiency is maximized by a small beam divergence and a stable pointing. Therefore, an additional FPA was developed and installed by the DLR both in the FELT2 and the OGS [83]. The complete setup visualizing the fine and coarse pointing control loops of the FELT2 is shown in figure 3.5 and the configuration at the OGS is depicted in figure 3.6, respectively.…”

Section: Fine Pointingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the Q i are not accessible from the experiment, as the actual photon number of a pulse leaving Alice is only defined on average and Table 5.2: Contributions to the overall attenuation. The attenuation of beam wander and broadening was calculated and found to be negligible in this scenario [83].…”

Section: Symbol Quantity Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…−6 dB simulation [83], visibility 50 km OGS collection eff. −15 dB link budget calculations [83] tracking losses −4 dB link budget calculations [83] diode coupling losses −2 dB link budget calculations [83] estimated total att. …”

Section: Symbol Quantity Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…time filtering −4.2 dB see section 5.1.3 detector efficiency −4.2 dB APD efficiency [85] interference filter ≈ −3 dB peak transmission −2.2 dB OGS optics −3 dB non ideal optics [83] atmospheric att. −6 dB simulation [83], visibility 50 km OGS collection eff.…”

Section: Symbol Quantity Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Air to ground quantum key distribution

et al. 2012

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Air-to-ground quantum communication

et al. 2013

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Quantum key distribution 1,2 (QKD) is the first commercial application in the new field of quantum information with first routine applications in governmental and financial sectors 3 and with successful demonstrations of trusted node networks 4,5. Today, the grand goal is efficient long range key distribution either via quantum repeaters 6 or via satellites 7-9 in order to enable global secure communication. On the way to QKD via satellites a free-space demonstration of secure key distribution was performed over 144 km between two ground stations 10. This scenario is comparable to links between satellites in low earth orbits (LEO) and ground stations with respect to both attenuation and fluctuations. However, we still miss key exchange with rapidly moving platforms. Here we prove for the first time the feasibility of BB84 quantum key distribution between an airplane and a ground station. Establishing a stable and low noise quantum communication channel with the plane moving with 290 km/h at a distance of 20 km, i.e., 4 mrad/s, our results are representative for typical communication links to satellites 11 or to high altitude platforms. Quantum key distribution provides a whole new level of information security. Any information gained by eavesdropping on the quantum channel can be quantified by the observed transmission noise, the quantum bit error ratio (QBER) 12. Security proofs, solely based on the laws of quantum mechanics, show how to determine the necessary amount of privacy amplification (i.e., key shrinkage according to the QBER) to eliminate the knowledge of a possible adversary 13. Starting with a first quantum channel of 30 cm length in 1989 14 quantum key distribution quickly was enabled on successively longer distances. Two main branches for communicating qubits encoded with quantum states of light were established: either via telecom fiber channels or via free-space transmission. In both cases increasing attenuation and noise limit the maximum distance for a successful key distribution to typically 150−200 km 10,15,16. So far, long range free-space quantum communication experiments used a direct line of sight either between two Canary Islands (144 km) or across a lake in China (95 km) to demonstrate free-space QKD, entanglement distribution 10,17-19 , or quantum teleportation 20,21. In spite of this remarkable progress, all quantum communication so far was performed with stationary systems only. Contrary, for classical optical free-space communication high bandwidth links to aircrafts and satellites have been shown to be feasible in recent years 11,22,23. Here we report on an experiment combining recent advances in classical and in quantum optical technologies to demonstrate the feasibility of quantum key distribution from an airplane to ground (fig. 1). Major challenges in this experiment are the higher pointing requirements compared to classical free-space communication, the development of a precise compensation technique to account for the relative rotations of airborne and ground station qubit en...

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Communication system technology for demonstration of BB84 quantum key distribution in optical aircraft downlinks

Cited by 10 publications

References 14 publications

Channel characterization for air-to-ground free-space optical communication links

Channel characterization for air-to-ground free-space optical communication links

Air to ground quantum key distribution

Air-to-ground quantum communication

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