Monte Carlo-Based Performance Analysis for Underwater Continuous-Variable Quantum Key Distribution

Abstract

There is a growing interest in the security of underwater communication with the increasing demand for undersea exploration. In view of the complex composition and special optical properties of seawater, this paper deals with a performance analysis for continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CVQKD) over an underwater link. In particular, we focus on analyzing the channel transmittance and detection efficiency based on Monte Carlo simulation for different water types, link distances and transceiver parameters. A comparison between the transmittance obtained by simple Beer’s law and Monte Carlo simulation reveals that the transmittance of underwater link may be severely underestimated in the previous underwater CVQKD research. The effect of the receiver aperture and field of view (FOV) on detection efficiency under different water types is further evaluated based on Monte Carlo. Simulation results show that the transmission distance of the underwater CVQKD system obtained by Monte Carlo simulation in pure sea water, clear ocean water and coastal ocean water is larger than that obtained by Beer’s law, while the key rate of the system in all types of water is smaller than that obtained by Beer’s law because the size and FOV of the receiver aperture are taken into account. By considering the practical system parameters, this paper establishes a comprehensive model for evaluating the security of underwater CVQKD systems with different system configurations.

Security of Underwater and Air-Water Wireless Communication

“…On the other hand, recently, Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) has been explored theoretically based on opticalbased underwater WCN [101,[103][104][105][106]. QKD is a promising mechanism where secret keys are generated based quantum mechanical properties, such as entanglement [100][101][102][103][104][105][106]; the no-cloning theorem 1 [177] then guarantees that these keys cannot be intercepted. QKD is divided into Discrete Variable QKD (DV-QKD) [178][179][180] and Continuous Variable QKD (CV-QKD) [181][182][183][184], where the latter has recently been preferred due to easy implementation and higher channel capacity [101,[103][104][105][106].…”

“…On the other hand, recently, Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) has been explored theoretically based on opticalbased underwater WCN [101,[103][104][105][106]. QKD is a promising mechanism where secret keys are generated based quantum mechanical properties, such as entanglement [100][101][102][103][104][105][106]; the no-cloning theorem 1 [174] then guarantees that these keys cannot be intercepted.…”

Investigation of the Scattering Noise in Underwater Optical Wireless Communications

“…MC numerical method with respect to the absorption and scattering effects has been reported in several recent works [11,28,29]. In [30], they evaluated the continuous-variable quantum key distribution method over an underwater link by using MC simulation. They showed that the performance evaluated by MC simulation is more accurate due to considering the contribution of scattered photons and the system transceiver parameters compared to Beer's law which depended on wavelength and distance [31].…”

Performance analysis of decoy state quantum key distribution over underwater turbulence channels

“…Another potential application domain for QKD is underwater sensor networks (USNs). The increasing deployment of USNs for underwater applications with sensitive data such as surveillance of critical infrastructure such as harbor, port, pipelines and maritime border protection have sparked interest in underwater QKD [6]- [15]. Monte Carlo simulations were conducted in [6] to demonstrate that the polarization of scattered photons was preserved in underwater environments.…”

“…In addition to these theoretical and simulation results, some experimental demonstrations of BB84 QKD protocol were further conducted in [10]- [13]. The performance of other QKD protocols based on entanglement [14] and continuous-variable approaches [15] were further investigated in underwater environments.…”