Quantum radar uses the strong correlations of entangled photons and has a great potential to improve the detection sensitivity. Recently, many research results have been achieved in theoretical analysis and experiments on the performance advantages of quantum illumination radar. However, there are limited researches on its detection range. Based on the analysis of the noise tolerance of entangled state photons, we study the advantages of quantum illumination radar in detection range based on radar equation. It is shown that the detection range of quantum illumination radar is larger than that of classical radar in some regimes due to the strong noise suppression ability of quantum radar.
Quantum radar uses the strong correlations of entangled photons and has a great potential to improve the detection sensitivity. Recently, many research results have been achieved in theoretical analysis and experiments on the performance advantages of quantum illumination radar. However, there are limited researches on its detection range. Based on the analysis of the noise tolerance of entangled state photons, we study the advantages of quantum illumination radar in detection range based on radar equation. It is shown that the detection range of quantum illumination radar is larger than that of classical radar in some regimes due to the strong noise suppression ability of quantum radar.
Abstract Based on quantum illumination (QI) protocol, microwave quantum radar has been developed, which has attracted great interest from radar researchers. While, according to the QI protocol, the quantum advantage of QI radar is related to the power of generated signal, which may lead to a trade‐off between its quantum advantage and the maximum detection range. However, the maximum detection range is an important indicator to measure the performance of the radar. Therefore, it is necessary to quantitatively analyse the maximum detection range and quantum advantages of microwave QI radar, which will help us understand its performance from the perspective of radar applications and further evaluate the potential application scenarios and future research directions of it. The microwave quantum radar equation is developed, by the authors, based on the classical radar equation with the consideration of the quantum properties of extremely weak signals. Then, the maximum detection range of QI radar and classical two mode noise radar in different microwave bands is comprehensively compared and analysed. The possible applications of microwave QI radars in different bands are also discussed. In addition, the authors demonstrate that the symmetrical quantum limited amplification actually has no contribution to improving the detection range of a QI radar.
Quantum radar based on the mechanism of quantum physics and the quantum information is a new sensing technology that was developed to solve technology bottleneck of classic radar. Especially, The Quantum illumination based on entanglement light beam could overcome noise and information loss. In this paper, the principle of quantum radar is introduced in detail, and the quantum illumination radar scheme using entangled photons is discussed. Then, target detection method based on entangled photons is given, and simulation results are showed. Finally, it is demonstrated by experiments that the performance of entangled photon detection system is superior to non-entangled photon detection system in a noisy and lossy environment, and the targets appear to look bigger when looked with low photon number.
Quantum radar systems leverage entangled photon pairs to detect and identify targets in noisy or cluttered environments with sensitivity beyond classical limits. By transmitting one photon of an entangled pair toward a distant object while retaining its partner locally, the system exploits quantum correlations to improve signal discrimination, reduce noise susceptibility, and enhance detection probability. This paper outlines the physical principles, operational architecture, and performance advantages of entanglement‑based illumination, providing a clear foundation for future quantum‑enhanced sensing technologies.(If you want it shorter, longer, or more formal, tap: shorter paragraph, longer paragraph, more formal)
This article presents a comprehensive analysis of two classes of quantum radars, including quantum direct-detection and quantum-entangled noise radars. In the first case, inspired by the well-established concept of single-photon LiDARs, we investigated the performance of single-photon radars, in which state-of-the-art single microwave-photon detectors are employed to enhance the detection sensitivity and enable the detection of weaker signals. We derived analytical expressions for the maximum detection range of both classes of quantum radars in terms of the Lambert W function, by considering all relevant system, target, and environmental parameters. Our formulation facilitates direct comparison of noise radars with direct-detection radars and suggests that a quantum-entangled noise radar can be regarded as an enhanced direct-detection radar with an effective threshold signal-to-noise ratio. Furthermore, we applied this framework to classical-correlated noise radars and defined the parameter range enhancement factor (REF) to quantify the superiority of quantum-entangled noise radars over their classical counterparts. Moreover, we introduced a rule-of-thumb for approximating the REF. We also examined the influence of limitations imposed by various microwave detection technologies. Our analysis shows that the conventional antennas limit the potential benefits of quantum-entangled noise radar systems. We also demonstrated that the optimal detection method for these radars is a microwave detector based on a quantum transducer combined with a single optical-photon detector. We showed that, with the current technology, implementing a quantum-entangled noise radar with the maximum detection range on the order of few kilometers is possible. Finally, we explored the potential applications of quantum-entangled noise radars.
There has been a great interest in quantum metrology (e.g., quantum interferometric radar) due to its applications in sub-Rayleigh ranging and remote sensing. Despite interferometric radar has received vast amount of attentions over the past two decades, very few researches has been conducted on another type of quantum radar: quantum illumination radar, or more precisely quantum target detection. It is, in general, used to interrogate whether the low-reflectivity target in a noisy thermal bath is existed using quantum light. The entanglement properties of its emitted light source give it a unique detection advantage over the classical radar. Entangled coherent state (ECS), as a class of quantum states with high entanglement robustness in noisy environments, has been widely used in several fields of quantum science such as quantum informatics, quantum metrology . In this paper, we investigate the target detection performance of quantum illumination radar based on three different types of ECS states. We employ the two-mode squeezed vacuum state (TMSV) and the coherent state as benchmarks to compare and analyze the relationship between the entanglement strength of the three types of ECS states and their quantum illumination detection performance. We found that the detection performance of the three ECS states is better than that of the coherent state. However, it is inferior to that of the TMSV state when the target is of low reflectivity. The emitted photon number is much smaller than the background noise (we call this as “good” illumination conditions). On the contrary, quantum illumination radar has no obvious advantage over coherent state radar for target detection under other illumination conditions; further, the detection performance of these three types of ECS states is not evidently related to that of the TMSV state and the coherent state. Finally, we reveal that the target detection performance of quantum illumination for the first two types of ECS states can be determined by their entanglement strength under “good” illumination conditions by adjusting the inter-modal phase of these two ECS states while keeping the emitted photon number constant. Under other illumination conditions, there is no evidence to demonstrate the entanglement strength of ECS states being associated with their target detection performance.
The quantum illumination radar uses pairs of entangled photons to enhance the detection sensitivity of a reflecting target.In this paper, we worked on a quantum illumination radar using a pair of entangled photons in polarization in the microwave frequency range in the atmosphere.We studied the quantum information evolution modeling the propagation of a photon in the atmosphere while building two binary decision strategies for the QI radar.We focused on the quantum information evolution showing that the quantum discord representing quantum correlations beyond entanglement could represent an interesting resource to explore for the subject of quantum radar.In addition, we made an approximative estimation of the entanglement survival distance in the atmosphere.Results showed that an optimization should be found to favour the survival of quantum correlations or the signal-to-noise ratios calculated with the binary decision strategy.