Andrew Conrad

As the proliferation of automation in smart transportation continues, there is a need to secure communication links of “on-the-go” future mobile platforms. In this effort, we implement decoy-state quantum key distribution (QKD), which provides provably secure communication, to mobile platforms such as drones and vehicles. Unlike demonstrations in fiber of fixed point-to-point, QKD between mobile platforms provides unique challenges such as designing systems with reduced size, weight, and power, establishing a stable line-of-sight as the platforms are in motion, and maintaining performance over a wide operating temperature range, etc. We design our QKD transmitter and receiver using a modular design that is platform-agnostic. This allows us to deploy the same QKD system on an octocopter drone and a car without any hardware or software modifications. We describe critical subsystems including our resonant-cavity QKD source, custom prepare and measure optics, pointing, acquisition, and tracking system, single-photon detector, field-programmable gate array-based time-tagger, and qubit-based time-synchronization algorithm. Our achievements include drone-to-drone QKD, drone-to-car quantum transmission, and high-speed (70 mph) vehicle-to-vehicle quantum transmission on a U.S. Interstate Highway.

Aerial Drones have been used in defense applications for decades, but recently the commercial use cases of drones have significantly increased to include package delivery, taxis, aerial photography, disaster relief, and even delivery of COVID-19 vaccines. Typically drones rely on a plurality of in-flight sensors for navigation and external command and control signals for tasking. As drones continue to proliferate our skies, the need to secure communication between drone constellations will become increasingly important, since the unmanned nature of drones offers new attack vectors which are not present for platforms with human operators. Quantum security protocols such as Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) offer unique advantages over classical approaches to secure the command-and-control signals of current and future drone constellations. In this presentation, we will report progress towards demonstrating QKD between two drones in flight. Critical subsystems and characterization data will be presented such as the QKD source, which is based on a resonant cavity Light Emitting Diodes (LED), as well as a secondary QKD source based on a fiber-coupled polarization modulator. The Pointing Acquisition, and Tracking (PAT) system provides both course alignment using Infrared (IR) beacons and cameras and fine alignment is achieved using Fast Steering Mirrors (FSM) and feedback position sensors. We will discuss QKD optical payloads, which were fabricated using a 3D printed bench to achieve a compact size and weight, single-photon detectors, an FPGA-based time-tagger and two time-synchronization approaches. Providing quantum security to emerging drone networks, including airborne and ground-based systems such as self-driving cars, is a critical enabling technology required to extend the future quantum internet to mobile platforms, with could play an essential role, e.g., for reconfigurable distributed quantum sensors.

While most current quantum network nodes are connected via fiber-based or free-space fixed point-to-point links, there have been many advancements in the last decade that expand these nodes to include mobile, re-configurable, and wireless platforms such as uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) and satellites. The size, weight, and power (SWaP) restrictions of these platforms pose constraints that potentially impact the system performance of mobile nodes. Here, we will discuss our progress towards developing a low-SWaP mobile quantum key distribution (QKD) platform that can exchange quantum-secured random keys between both drones and cars. We implement a finite-key security proof that incorporates system imperfections in state preparation and analysis, including channel losses. These imperfections, present in any system, require consideration during key consolidation to minimize information leakage. We demonstrate average finite secure key rates between mobile platforms up to 19.6 kbit/s.