This work is to study the effects of charged sand/dust atmosphere on the performances of microwave quantum illumination (QI) radar. Based on Mie particle scattering theory, using a Monte Carlo method for simulating the physical process in which photon is scattered multiple times by discrete random distributed particles, the specific attenuation (dB/km) of microwave propagating in sand/dust atmosphere are analyzed under the conditions of varying atmospheric visibility and sand/dust particles with different charged quantities. It is indicated that the specific attenuation obtained by multiple scattering is smaller than that obtained based on Mie theory, for microwave propagating in charged sand/dust atmosphere. The smaller the atmospheric visibility, the greater the difference is, while the difference decreases gradually as the atmospheric visibility increases. Then, it is more reasonable to consider multiple scattering attenuation at lower atmospheric visibility. When sand/dust particle is charged, the specific attenuation is increased, however, this increase is not linear. According to quantum illumination radar theory, a beam splitter-based optical link model is used to simulate the sand/dust atmospheric channel. The effects of charged sand/dust atmosphere with different visibility on the detection error probability, signal-to-noise ratio, and maximum detection range for microwave quantum illumination radar are studied by using quantum radar equation and quantum detection error probability theory. The performances between QI radar and classical two-mode noise (TMN) radar are compared and analyzed. These results show that the performances of quantum illumination radar are improved with sand/dust atmospheric visibility increasing. When sand/dust particles are charged, the performances for QI radar are degraded due to attenuation increasing. The change in the performance is nonlinear with the variation of sand/dust carrying charge quantity. When visibility is high, increasing the signal frequency can improve the performance of quantum illumination radar, but when visibility is low, the gain of frequency increase is offset by the performance decline caused by attenuation increase. Therefore, it is not recommended to increase the frequency in such a case. The comparison with classical radar reveals that QI radar performs better under the condition of lower atmospheric visibility and lower average photon emission, but this advantage diminishes as the number of photons increases. In a word, these results show that the performances of QI radar are more significant at lower atmospheric visibility. Under higher visibility conditions, the QI system SNR can be improved by increasing frequency. The maximum detection range of the QI radar is significantly better than that of the classical TMN radar.
This work is to study the effects of charged sand/dust atmosphere on the performances of microwave quantum illumination (QI) radar. Based on Mie particle scattering theory, using a Monte Carlo method for simulating the physical process in which photon is scattered multiple times by discrete random distributed particles, the specific attenuation (dB/km) of microwave propagating in sand/dust atmosphere are analyzed under the conditions of varying atmospheric visibility and sand/dust particles with different charged quantities. It is indicated that the specific attenuation obtained by multiple scattering is smaller than that obtained based on Mie theory, for microwave propagating in charged sand/dust atmosphere. The smaller the atmospheric visibility, the greater the difference is, while the difference decreases gradually as the atmospheric visibility increases. Then, it is more reasonable to consider multiple scattering attenuation at lower atmospheric visibility. When sand/dust particle is charged, the specific attenuation is increased, however, this increase is not linear. According to quantum illumination radar theory, a beam splitter-based optical link model is used to simulate the sand/dust atmospheric channel. The effects of charged sand/dust atmosphere with different visibility on the detection error probability, signal-to-noise ratio, and maximum detection range for microwave quantum illumination radar are studied by using quantum radar equation and quantum detection error probability theory. The performances between QI radar and classical two-mode noise (TMN) radar are compared and analyzed. These results show that the performances of quantum illumination radar are improved with sand/dust atmospheric visibility increasing. When sand/dust particles are charged, the performances for QI radar are degraded due to attenuation increasing. The change in the performance is nonlinear with the variation of sand/dust carrying charge quantity. When visibility is high, increasing the signal frequency can improve the performance of quantum illumination radar, but when visibility is low, the gain of frequency increase is offset by the performance decline caused by attenuation increase. Therefore, it is not recommended to increase the frequency in such a case. The comparison with classical radar reveals that QI radar performs better under the condition of lower atmospheric visibility and lower average photon emission, but this advantage diminishes as the number of photons increases. In a word, these results show that the performances of QI radar are more significant at lower atmospheric visibility. Under higher visibility conditions, the QI system SNR can be improved by increasing frequency. The maximum detection range of the QI radar is significantly better than that of the classical TMN radar.
Quantum communication is a frontier hotspot of current research, and it has ideal information security. In order to enable quantum systems in arid and desertified areas to work almost under all-weather condition, it is necessary to study the attenuation of free-space quantum signal transmission and the influence of the turbulence atmosphere carrying sand and dust on communication performance. Using Mie scattering theory, multiple scattering simulation method, and atmospheric turbulence theory, the attenuation of optical wave transmission in sand and dust turbulent atmospheric channels with different visibility, and the influence of multiple scattering and turbulence on attenuation are studied. The results show that the effect of multiple scattering increases with the decrease of visibility, the turbulence effect gradually strengthens with the increase of distance. According to the quantum amplitude damped channel model, the effects of multiple scattering and turbulence in the sand and dust turbulent atmosphere with different visibility on the quantum channel capacity, fidelity and bit error rate are analyzed. The results show that as the visibility decreases, the multiple scattering effect increases, resulting in the decrease of attenuation and bit error rate, but an increase in channel capacity, fidelity and the boundaries of security key rate. The existence of turbulence in the dust atmosphere will increase the attenuation and bit error rate, but reduce the channel capacity, fidelity and security key rate. It can be seen that the influence of multiple scattering and turbulence on the communication performance, when the visibility of the sand and dust atmosphere are both low, cannot be ignored. In practical applications, the relevant parameters of quantum communication should be adaptively adjusted according to the visibility and turbulence intensity to improve the probability, efficiency and reliability of quantum communication.
In order to study the influence of PM2.5 particles on the detection performance of quantum interference radar, this article analyzes the relationship between the concentration of PM2.5 particles and the extinction coefficient under different particle sizes based on the spectral distribution function of PM2.5 particles and the Mie scattering theory. Then establish the influence model of PM2.5 particles on the detection distance and maximum detection error probability of quantum interference radar. The simulation results show that as the concentration of PM2.5 particles increases, the extinction coefficient of PM2.5 particles shows a gradually increasing trend; the energy of the detected photons is attenuated, resulting in a decrease in the transmission distance of the photons; when the energy of the emitted photons remains unchanged, The maximum detection error probability of quantum interference radar increases with the increase of PM2.5 particle concentration; when the PM2.5 particle concentration remains unchanged, the maximum detection error probability decreases gradually with the increase of the emitted photon energy. Therefore, the average number of emitted photons should be appropriately adjusted according to PM2.5 pollution in order to reduce the impact of PM2.5 atmospheric pollution on the detection performance of quantum interference 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.
There has been aroused much interest in quantum metrology such as quantum radar, due to its applications in sub-Raleigh ranging and remote sensing. For quantum radar, the atmospheric absorption and diffraction rapidly degrade any actively transmitted quantum states of light, such as N00N and MM' states. Thus for the high-loss condition, the optimal strategy is to transmit coherent state of light, which can only provide sensitivity at the shot-noise limit but suffer no worse loss than the linear Beer's law for classical radar attenuation. In this paper, the target detection theory of quantum interferometric radar in the presence of photon loss is thoroughly investigated with the model of Mach-Zehnder interferometer, and the dynamic evolution of the quantum light field in the detecting process is also investigated. We utilize the parity operator to detect the return signal of quantum interferometric radar with coherent-state source. Then we compare the detection result of quantum radar with that of classical radar, which proves that the quantum radar scheme that employs coherent radiation sources and parity operator detection can provide an N-fold super-resolution, which is much below the Rayleigh diffraction limit; besides, the sensitivity of this scheme can also achieve the shot-noise-limit. Also, we analyze the effect of atmospheric attenuation on the performance of quantum radar, and find that the sensitivity is seriously influenced by atmospheric attenuation:only when the reference beam and the detection beam have the same transmissivity, will the sensitivity increase monotonically with increasing the photon number per pulse N, otherwise it first increases and then decreases with increasing N. Further, the sensivity is directly proportional to 1/N for the first case. In conclusion, we investigate the effects of atmospheric absorption on the resolution and sensitivity of quantum radar, and find that one can overcome the harmful effects of atmospheric attenuation by adjusting the transmissivity of reference beam to the atmospheric transmittance.
Quantum communication provides high security and privacy, offering effective protection against eavesdropping and decryption during information transmission. Its inherent unconditional security addresses information security issues effectively. Dust particles, as prevalent environmental factors in the atmosphere, exert negative impacts on both traditional and quantum communication. Due to the higher requirements for signal fidelity and stability in quantum communication, the impact of dust particles may be more significant. To investigate the effect of dust aerosol particles on the performance of satellite-ground quantum communication links, we established quantitative relationships between particle number concentration and transmission distance, and the link attenuation, as well as the channel capacity, system survival function, and error rate of three noise channels: amplitude damping, bit-flip, and depolarizing channels. Using Matlab, we conducted experimental simulations based on the size distribution function of dust aerosol particles and Mie scattering theory. The simulation results indicate that when the transmission distance is 6 km and the particle concentration of dust aerosols increases from20/m3to55/m3, the channel attenuation factor increases from84.35dB/kmto232dB/km. The capacity of the amplitude damping channel decreases from0.6486bit/sto0.3943bit/s, and the survival function of the amplitude damping channel decreases to 0.9059. When the particle concentration is900/m3and the transmission distance increases from 3km to 8km, the bit error rate increases from 0.03 to 0.2. The results indicate that dust aerosols have impacted various aspects of satellite-to-ground communication, each in different ways, highlighting the importance of considering their influence. Therefore, when implementing quantum communication in practice, it is essential to adjust the parameters accordingly to ensure the normal operation of communication.
Much interest has been aroused in quantum metrology such as quantum interferometric radar, due to its application in sub-Raleigh ranging and remote sensing. Generally, the quantum signal emitted by quantum radar will be affected by atmosphere medium. For instance, both atmospheric loss and atmospheric scintillation seriously affect the sensitivity and resolution of quantum radar. In fact, the effects of atmospheric loss on the sensitivity and resolution of quantum interferometric radar have been investigated thoroughly and completely in the past decades. However, the investigation about the influence of atmospheric scintillation is lacking until now. To realize practical quantum interferometric radar, the perturbation coming from turbulent atmosphere must be considered, thus it is necessary to investigate how the atmospheric scintillation affects the performance of quantum radar.In this paper, the influence of intensity fluctuation which is caused by atmospheric scintillation on the performance of quantum interferometric radar with entangled coherent states (ECS) is thoroughly investigated. We first introduce the physical model of quantum interferometric radar, and the dynamic evolution of quantum light field in atmosphere is obtained by solving the master equation of dissipation channel. Considering the dissipation and fluctuation caused by atmospheric scintillation, we regard the turbulent atmosphere as so-called dissipation-fluctuation channel. Moreover, according to classical statistical theory of turbulence, we derive the explicit expression of probability distribution of transmission coefficient P(T), this probability distribution of transmission cofficient, which is determined by average transmission coefficient TD and scintillation index βD2 plays a crucial role in the studying of atmospheric scintillation.The results of investigation show that atmospheric scintillation leads to the degradation of the sensitivity and resolution of ECS quantum interferometric radar at lower atmospheric loss. Under the higher lossy condition of atmosphere, atmospheric scintillation can greatly enhance the performance of quantum interferometric radar. Furthermore, the critical atmospheric transmission coefficient which determines the lower and higher loss of atmosphere keeps increasing with the increase of average photon number per pulse. Increasing the atmospheric scintillation, rather than introducing noise and degrading the performance of quantum radar, can improve the sensitivity and resolution.This anomalous phenomenon can be explained only by quantum decoherence theory. As is well known, the supersensitivity and super-resolution of quantum radar are based on the nonlocal characteristic of quantum light field, while the dissipation process will induce decoherence that leads to the loss of nonlocal characteristic, and finally degrades the performance of quantum radar. However, there have been several researches indicating that the dissipation-fluctuation channel can alleviate the decoherence effect and maintain the nonlocal characteristic of quantum light field compared with pure dissipation channel. For the evolution of quantum light field in dissipation medium, the loss of amplitude plays a crucial role at a lower loss, while the decoherence will play a dominant role at a higher loss. Consequently, the fluctuation may induce extra noise and degrade the performance of quantum radar at lower loss. For higher loss, the fluctuation can prevent the decoherence process and maintain the quantum characteristic of light field, thus the atmospheric scintillation finally improves the sensitivity and resolution of quantum radar.