Rydberg atomic receivers offer a quantum-native alternative to conventional RF front-ends by directly detecting electromagnetic fields via highly excited atomic states. While their quantum-limited sensitivity and hardware simplicity make them promising for future wireless systems, extending their use to scalable multi-antenna and multi-carrier configurations, termed Scalable Atomic-MIMO (SA-MIMO), remains largely unexplored. This paper introduces a novel RF transmitter-atomic receiver architecture that addresses this gap. The core idea lies in a novel modulation technique called Phase-Rotated Symbol Spreading (PRSS), which transforms the nonlinear phase retrieval problem inherent to atomic detection into a tractable linear demultiplexing task. PRSS enables efficient signal processing and supports scalable MUX/DeMUX operations in atomic MIMO systems. Simulation results show that the proposed system achieves up to 2.5 dB gain under optimal maximum-likelihood detection and over 10 dB under suboptimal detection in MIMO settings. These results establish PRSS-assisted SA-MIMO as a promising architecture for realizing high-sensitivity, interference-resilient atomic wireless communication.
Rydberg atomic receivers offer a quantum-native alternative to conventional RF front-ends by directly detecting electromagnetic fields via highly excited atomic states. While their quantum-limited sensitivity and hardware simplicity make them promising for future wireless systems, extending their use to scalable multi-antenna and multi-carrier configurations, termed Scalable Atomic-MIMO (SA-MIMO), remains largely unexplored. This paper introduces a novel RF transmitter-atomic receiver architecture that addresses this gap. The core idea lies in a novel modulation technique called Phase-Rotated Symbol Spreading (PRSS), which transforms the nonlinear phase retrieval problem inherent to atomic detection into a tractable linear demultiplexing task. PRSS enables efficient signal processing and supports scalable MUX/DeMUX operations in atomic MIMO systems. Simulation results show that the proposed system achieves up to 2.5 dB gain under optimal maximum-likelihood detection and over 10 dB under suboptimal detection in MIMO settings. These results establish PRSS-assisted SA-MIMO as a promising architecture for realizing high-sensitivity, interference-resilient atomic wireless communication.
The advancement of Rydberg atoms in quantum information technology is driving a paradigm shift from classicalradio-frequency(RF) receivers to Rydberg atomic receivers. Capitalizing on the extreme sensitivity of Rydberg atoms to external electromagnetic fields, Rydberg atomic receivers are capable of realizing more precise radio-wave measurements than RF receivers to support high-performance wireless communication and sensing. Although the atomic receiver is developing rapidly in quantum-physics domain, its integration with wireless communications is at a nascent stage. In particular, systematic methods to enhance communication performance through this integration are yet to be discovered. Motivated by this observation, we propose in this paper to incorporate Rydberg atomic receivers intomultiple-input-multiple-output(MIMO) communication, a prominent 5G technology, as the first attempt on implementing atomic MIMO receivers. To begin with, we provide a comprehensive introduction on the principles of Rydberg atomic receivers and build on them to design the atomic MIMO receivers. Our findings reveal that signal detection of atomic MIMO receivers corresponds to a non-linear biasedphase retrieval(PR) problem, as opposed to the linear Gaussian model adopted in classical MIMO systems. Then, to recover signals from this non-linear model, we modify the Gerchberg-Saxton (GS) algorithm, a typical PR solver, into a biased GS algorithm to solve the biased PR problem. Moreover, we propose a novel Expectation-Maximization GS (EM-GS) algorithm to cope with the unique Rician distribution of the biased PR model. Our EM-GS algorithm introduces a high-pass filter constructed by the ratio of Bessel functions into the iteration procedure of GS, thereby improving the detection accuracy without sacrificing the computational efficiency. Finally, the effectiveness of the devised algorithms and the feasibility of atomic MIMO receivers are demonstrated by theoretical analysis and numerical simulation.
Physical layer security (PLS) provides information-theoretic confidentiality for next-generation wireless systems, yet its practical deployment is fundamentally constrained by the sensitivity and noise characteristics of classical radio receivers. Recent advances in quantum sensing, particularly Rydberg atom-based receivers (RAQRs), present a promising approach to address these limitations. This paper introduces a Rydberg atomic quantum multiple-input multiple-output (RAQ-MIMO) architecture for secure multi-user uplink communications, where an array of Rydberg vapor cells functions as a high-sensitivity, reconfigurable receiving front-end. We develop a comprehensive end-to-end signal and channel model that incorporates quantum sensor response, wireless fading, and eavesdropper behavior under passive interception. To maximize the achievable secrecy rate, we propose a joint optimization framework that adaptively tunes key system degrees of freedom, including the Rabi frequency of the local oscillator, phase configuration, digital combining matrix, and user transmit power. Extensive simulations validate that RAQ-MIMO substantially outperforms classical MIMO in terms of secrecy rate across varying transmission distances, power budgets, and user loads—particularly under low-signal to noise ratio (SNR) and extended-range regimes. Our work establishes a quantum-sensing-assisted security foundation for future high-assurance wireless networks, bridging atomic physics with scalable communication system design with scalable communication system design under narrowband operation.
The advancement of Rydberg atoms is driving a paradigm shift from classical receivers to atomic receivers. Capitalizing on the extreme sensitivity of Rydberg atoms to external disturbance, atomic receivers can measure radio waves more precisely than classical receivers to support high-performance wireless communication. Although the atomic receiver is developing rapidly in the field of quantum physics, its integration with wireless communications is at a nascent stage. Particularly, systematic methods to enhance communication performance through this integration are largely uncharted. Motivated by this observation, we propose to incorporate atomic receivers into multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications to implement atomic-MIMO receivers. We establish the framework of atomic-MIMO receivers by exploiting the principle of quantum sensing. Our model reveals that the signal detection of atomic-MIMO systems is intrinsically a nonlinear phase-retrieval problem, as opposed to the linear model in classical MIMO systems. To perform atomic-MIMO signal detection, we propose an Expectation-Maximization-Gerchberg-Saxton (EM-GS) algorithm based on the maximum likelihood (ML) criteria. Its novelty lies in treating the unobserved phase information as a latent variable and thereby decoupling the intricate ML problem into a sequence of tractable linear regression problems with analytical solutions. Experimental results validate the effectiveness of detecting atomic-MIMO signals using the EM-GS algorithm.
Next-generation space-air-ground-sea integrated networks (SAGSIN) impose unprecedented demands on advanced radio frequency (RF) receivers for full-spectrum agility, ultra-high sensitivity, and anti-jamming resilience, pushing conventional electronic receivers to their physical limits. To address these challenges, the Rydberg atomic quantum (RAQ) radio has emerged as a promising quantum-enabled receiver paradigm that directly maps electromagnetic fields onto atomic quantum states, offering an alternative to alleviate bottlenecks of conventional RF front ends. To provide a clear research roadmap, this survey presents a comprehensive review of RAQ radios by bridging atomic physics and wireless communications. Specifically, we first introduce the underlying quantum mechanisms, representative architectures, and atomic response models of RAQ radio. On this basis, state-of-the-art techniques for enhancing sensitivity, instantaneous bandwidth, and operating frequency are systematically reviewed, with particular emphasis on the inherent trade-offs among these key metrics. To connect quantum response with communication theory, we further analyze equivalent channel modeling frameworks for characterizing systematic performance limits. From the wireless communication perspective, some RAQ-enabled advanced technologies including cognitive, interference-resilient, low-frequency and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications are reviewed, alongside emerging deployment scenarios such as satellite networks, integrated sensing and communications, and reconfigurable intelligent surface-assisted systems. Finally, we identify open challenges and provide potential future directions of RAQ radio to inspire the further exploration.
Rydberg atomic quantum receivers (RAQRs) are capable of receiving multi-band radio-frequency (RF) signals simultaneously, which are expected to break Chu's limit for classical electronic antennas. However, signals from different users will interfere with each other in the optical intermediate frequency (IF) domain of the multi-band quantum receiver, which is termed the IF interference (IFI) problem. To address this problem, in this paper, we propose a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) architecture for Rydberg atomic quantum receiver (RAQ-MIMO) by exploiting the additional spatial diversity of MIMO receivers. Specifically, by applying the dynamic signal model of RAQRs, we clarify the physical relationship between the quantum local oscillator (LO) configurations and the multi-band gains with the concept of quantum transconductance. Then, with the quantum transconductance-based signal model, we formulate the spectral efficiency (SE) maximization problem and further propose the quantum weighted minimum mean square error (qWMMSE) algorithm, which jointly optimizes the quantum LO configurations and the classical precoder/combiner matrices. Furthermore, we test the qWMMSE algorithm within the standard space division multiple access (SDMA) scheme and the frequency division multiple access (FDMA) scheme. Simulation results demonstrate that the qWMMSE optimization framework can significantly improve the SE of RAQ-MIMO systems for both multiple access schemes, and that RAQ-MIMO systems can outperform classical electronic receiver-based multi-user MIMO systems by eliminating the mutual coupling effect between classical antennas.
Rydberg atomic quantum receivers exhibit great potential in assisting classical wireless communications due to their outstanding advantages in detecting radio frequency signals. To realize this potential, we integrate a Rydberg atomic quantum receiver into a classical multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) scheme to form a multi-user Rydberg atomic quantum MIMO (RAQ-MIMO) system for the uplink. To study this system, we first construct an equivalent baseband signal model, which facilitates convenient system design, signal processing and optimizations. We then study the ergodic achievable rates under both the maximum ratio combining (MRC) and zero-forcing (ZF) schemes by deriving their tight lower bounds. We next compare the ergodic achievable rates of the RAQ-MIMO and the conventional massive MIMO schemes by offering a closed-form expression for the difference of their ergodic achievable rates, which allows us to directly compare the two systems. Our results show that RAQ-MIMO allows the average transmit power of users to be>25d B mlower than that of the conventional massive MIMO. Viewed from a different perspective, an extra∼8.8bits/s/Hz/user rate becomes achievable by ZF RAQ-MIMO.