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Asia Communications and Photonics Conference

A Multilink Wavelength Assignment Scheme for QKD Optical Network Based on BB84 and SNS Protocols over Multicore Fiber

Ziqi Gao, Yongmei Sun, Weiwen Kong, Yaoxian Gao

Published Nov 5, 2022• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

To address the problem of different security requirements for services, we use both the most widely used BB84 and the sending or not sending (SNS) protocol with higher security in the quantum key distribution (QKD) network over multicore fiber. Since SNS involves multiple links, communication node pairs will affect each other will affect each other when assigning channels, which will reduce the secure key rate. In this paper, we propose a resource assignment scheme for reducing the impact between links in which we define the impact rate to evaluate the impact of each wavelength. The simulation results show that the secret key rate per link is improved by 101.72 % compared with the first-fit algorithm.

DOI
10.1109/acp55869.2022.10088630

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To address the problem of different security requirements for services, we use both the most widely used BB84 and the sending or not sending (SNS) protocol with higher security in the quantum key distribution (QKD) network over multicore fiber. Since SNS involves multiple links, communication node pairs will affect each other will affect each other when assigning channels, which will reduce the secure key rate. In this paper, we propose a resource assignment scheme for reducing the impact between links in which we define the impact rate to evaluate the impact of each wavelength. The simulation results show that the secret key rate per link is improved by 101.72 % compared with the first-fit algorithm.
In this paper, we propose core and wavelength allocation schemes for the simultaneous transmission of classical signals and quantum key distribution (QKD) over multi-core fiber (MCF), aiming to maximize the secure key rate, and evaluate the proposed schemes in sending-or-not-sending-QKD (SNS-QKD) and Bennett-Brassard-1984-QKD (BB84-QKD). First, we formulate the noise power on quantum channels, and propose a theoretical model of backward cascaded noise of four wave mixing and inter-core crosstalk considering modulation frequency of the classical signals. Also, the impact of noises on secure key rate is calculated in SNS-QKD and BB84-QKD. Then, we propose a core allocation algorithm in order to reduce the noise interference to quantum cores, and the quantum equal frequency spacing (qEFS) and the quantum unequal frequency spacing (qUFS) wavelength allocation schemes are proposed in the same-core (SC) and the different-core (DC) distribution. Finally, we perform numerical simulation and experimental evaluation for the proposed schemes. Compared with the conventional channel allocation (CCA) scheme in SNS-QKD, the proposed schemes can extend the secure transmission distance up to 78.8%. In BB84-QKD, the secure transmission distance can be extended up to 127.1% under SC-qUFS scheme. Experimental results show that the proposed schemes can suppress noise photons up to 57.54% compared to CCA scheme.
Data transmission with optical fiber is vulnerable to eavesdropping. Moreover, conventional key distribution technology suffers from increasing computational power and upgraded attack algorithms. To address these issues, quantum key distribution (QKD), a quantum technology that secures secret information (such as a cryptographic key) exchange between two parties, can be used to guarantee secure data transmission. Integrating QKD into existing wavelength division multiplexing optical networks has been verified through a series of experiments, which contribute to ensuring network security and saving fiber resources. This paper addresses the resource assignment problem in QKD-enabled optical networks. First, a QKD-enabled optical network architecture is introduced. A small fraction of wavelength channels are segmented into multiple time slots with optical time division multiplexing technology to construct quantum key channels (QKChs) and measuring-basis channels, and then the remaining wavelengths can construct traditional data channels. Second, a static routing, wavelength, and time-slot assignment (RWTA) strategy is proposed and verified by the integer linear programming formulation and a heuristic algorithm. In the RWTA, QKChs are assigned for service requests according to the security levels specified by relevant key-updating periods. Thus, the secret keys for data encryption can update periodically to enhance security. Simulation results indicate that there is a trade-off between security (i.e., security levels and security-level types) and resource utilization.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) has great potential in ensuring data security. Deploying QKD-related devices in existing optical fiber networks is a cost-effective way to practically implement QKD. However, QKD optical networks (QKDON) have a low quantum key generation rate and limited wavelength channels for data transmission. The simultaneous arrival of multiple QKD services may also lead to wavelength conflicts in QKDON. Therefore, we propose a resource-adaptive routing scheme (RAWC) with wavelength conflicts to achieve load balancing and efficient utilization of network resources. Focusing on the impact of link load and resource competition, this scheme dynamically adjusts the link weights and introduces the wavelength conflict degree. Simulation results indicate that the RAWC algorithm is an effective approach to solving the wavelength conflict problem. Compared with the benchmark algorithms, the RAWC algorithm can improve service request success rate (SR) by up to 30%.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) supports secret key exchange to enable data exchange with guaranteed security but remains vulnerable to key exchange interruption caused by physical-layer threats, such as high-power jamming attacks. In particular, in a fiber-based QKD network equipped with optical switching capabilities, a high-power jamming signal injected into a single link can be optically switched and propagated to other links, resulting in the interruption of key exchange on multiple links. To address this challenge, we introduce a novel metric, the maximum number of affected requests (maxNAR), which quantifies the worst-case impact of a single physical-layer attack. Based on this, we investigate a new problem: Routing and Wavelength Assignment with Minimal Attack Radius (RWA-MAR). The objective of RWA-MAR is to assign routes and wavelengths to QKD requests so that the maximum number of requests disrupted by any single physical-layer attack is minimized. We first formulate the problem using an integer linear programming (ILP) model to minimize maxNAR. Due to computational limitations of ILP, we develop a scalable solution that dynamically balances security (minimizing maxNAR) and resource efficiency. The DRL solution is designed to utilize key caches (defined as QKP) to minimize the maxNAR, as the QKP can save the keys for future use. Extensive simulations across diverse topologies and workloads show that our approach achieves a significant reduction in maxNAR (over 50%) compared to the baseline. Meanwhile, our approach maintains reasonable resource efficiency in key delivery, marking a step toward robust and attack-aware QKD network design.
We propose a quantum access network based on multicore fiber (MCF) to scale up the number of users in quantum key distribution (QKD) networks. The MCF is used as feeder fiber and single core single mode fibers (SSMFs) are used as drop fibers. Quantum signals (QSs) are integrated with classical signals (CSs) in both MCF and SSMFs to save deployment cost since access networks are cost sensitive. Due to the integration, spontaneous Raman scattering (SRS) and intercore crosstalk (ICXT) are the main impairment sources to QKD. To alleviate the noise, we propose a core and wavelength assignment scheme (CWAS) that a dedicated core of MCF is used to transmit QSs and the wavelengths of QSs are set lower than those of upstream signals. Also, we demonstrate that wavelength time division multiplexing (WTDM) is suitable for QSs which are required to support large number of quantum users, since WTDM can realize higher secure key rate (SKR) than time division multiplexing (TDM) and require lower cost than wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). Finally, the proposed quantum access network is verified experimentally. The experiment results are consistent with our analysis. The properties of SRS in the proposed architecture are shown in the experiments through the quantum bit error rates (QBERs) in different experimental case, which verifies the superiority of the proposed CWAS. Also, the characteristics of the SKRs prove that the number of receivers has a great impact on the performance of QSs using WTDM.