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International Conference on Big Data, Communication Technology and Computer Applications (BDCTA)

A Cost-Optimal Quantum Key Distribution Based on Hybrid Trusted Relays

Jiamin He, Yuchen Zhou, Sijiang Xie, Chaokun Wang

Published Feb 14, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) has demonstrated unique and significant advantages in secure communication. In particular, Measurement-Device-Independent QKD (MDI-QKD), which is independent of measurement devices, increases data transmission distances and addresses the issue of low security in trusted relays. Therefore, in this work, we investigate QKD networks based on trusted and untrusted relays over optical backbone networks, providing a cost-optimal solution for the deployment and implementation of QKD networks. Specifically, this paper describes the QKD network and defines a new cost model, which not only fully considers the diverse impact factors of deployment costs but also meets the requirements for sharing network elements in response to different QKD chain requests. Based on cost model, this paper further proposes a cost-optimal heuristic algorithm for hybrid QKD network deployment, which can provide an economical and secure deployment solution for QKD networks. Extensive simulation experiments are conducted and the experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms current mainstream QKD network deployment algorithms in both deployment cost and security. Moreover, as the network scale increases, the advantages of our algorithm become more pronounced. Compared to mainstream algorithms, our method achieve an improvement of 17.7% -64.3% in cost savings and 1.19 to 3.24 times in security levels.

DOI
10.1145/3727505.3727528

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Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) has demonstrated unique and significant advantages in secure communication. In particular, Measurement-Device-Independent QKD (MDI-QKD), which is independent of measurement devices, increases data transmission distances and addresses the issue of low security in trusted relays. Therefore, in this work, we investigate QKD networks based on trusted and untrusted relays over optical backbone networks, providing a cost-optimal solution for the deployment and implementation of QKD networks. Specifically, this paper describes the QKD network and defines a new cost model, which not only fully considers the diverse impact factors of deployment costs but also meets the requirements for sharing network elements in response to different QKD chain requests. Based on cost model, this paper further proposes a cost-optimal heuristic algorithm for hybrid QKD network deployment, which can provide an economical and secure deployment solution for QKD networks. Extensive simulation experiments are conducted and the experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms current mainstream QKD network deployment algorithms in both deployment cost and security. Moreover, as the network scale increases, the advantages of our algorithm become more pronounced. Compared to mainstream algorithms, our method achieve an improvement of 17.7% -64.3% in cost savings and 1.19 to 3.24 times in security levels.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) has demonstrated a great potential to provide future-proofed security, especially for 5G and beyond communications. As the critical infrastructure for 5G and beyond communications, optical networks can offer a cost-effective solution to QKD deployment utilizing the existing fiber resources. In particular, measurement-device-independent QKD shows its ability to extend the secure distance with the aid of an untrusted relay. Compared to the trusted relay, the untrusted relay has obviously better security, since it does not rely on any assumption on measurement and even allows to be accessed by an eavesdropper. However, it cannot extend QKD to an arbitrary distance like the trusted relay, such that it is expected to be combined with the trusted relay for large-scale QKD deployment. In this work, we study the hybrid trusted/untrusted relay based QKD deployment over optical backbone networks and focus on cost optimization during the deployment phase. A new network architecture of hybrid trusted/untrusted relay based QKD over optical backbone networks is described, where the node structures of the trusted relay and untrusted relay are elaborated. The corresponding network, cost, and security models are formulated. To optimize the deployment cost, an integer linear programming model and a heuristic algorithm are designed. Numerical simulations verify that the cost-optimized design can significantly outperform the benchmark algorithm in terms of deployment cost and security level. Up to 25% cost saving can be achieved by deploying QKD with the hybrid trusted/untrusted relay scheme while keeping much higher security level relative to the conventional point-to-point QKD protocols that are only with the trusted relays.
The Measurement-Device-Independent-Quantum Key Distribution (MDI-QKD) has the advantage of extending the secure transmission distances. The MDI-QKD combined with the Hybrid-Trusted and Untrusted Relay (HTUR) is used to deploy large-scale QKD networks, which effectively saves deployment cost. We propose an improved scheme for the QKD network architecture and cost analysis, which simplifies the number of QKD transmitters and incorporates the quantum key pool (QKP) in the QKD network. We developed a novel Hybrid-QKD-Network-Cost (HQNC) heuristic algorithm to solve the cost optimization problem. Simulations verified that the scheme in this paper could save the cost by over 50 percent and 90 percent, respectively.
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is a promising technology that provides proven unconditional security based on fundamentals of quantum physics, especially for point-to-point communications. It could be applied in large-scale optical networks for long-distance key provisioning mainly by three relaying methods: quantum-repeater-based QKD, trusted-relay-based QKD, and measurement-device-independent QKD (MDI-QKD). However, quantum-repeater-based QKD is still under study because of the immature technologies such as the preliminary quantum memory. The trusted-relay-based QKD is vulnerable since insecurity of non-ideal single-photon sources and detectors cannot be ignored in practical applications. On the other hand, for MDI-QKD, there exists a limitation on its key rate under long-distance communications. According to these limitations, embedding protocols like MDI-QKD into the existing trusted-relay-based QKD secured optical networks (QKD-ON) with usage of untrusted relays is a promising key-provisioning scheme. In this paper, we study such partially-trusted relay scenarios and focus on its routing of keys in different kinds of typical network topologies. A partially-trusted-relay-based QKD method is described, which can allow a pair of optical nodes sharing secret keys under the coexistence of trusted relays and untrusted relays. The secret-key provisioning with collaborative routing (SKP-CR) algorithm is proposed to search for the optimal key-relay routing path. We perform the simulations with different proportion of trusted relays versus untrusted relays, initial secret keys in the quantum key pools (QKPs), and traffic load. The simulations verify that theSKP-CRalgorithm can significantly outperform the conventional trusted-relay-based scheme in terms of key-distribution success rate with an improvement of up to62%with a mesh topology.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) can serve large numbers of users with unconditional secure communication, in which measurement-device-independent (MDI) QKD protocol can conveniently enhance realistic security by eliminating all detector side channels. In multi-user scenarios, MDI-QKD networks should meet the requirements of reliability and robustness. Around the issues, we complete a series of work on performance improvement, low-cost deployment, and robust networking. First is to answer how to change the trusted node to the untrusted node with low cost, here we propose and demonstrate an MDIQKD which is compatible with phase encoding BB84 networks, allowing for economical deployment of MDI-QKD networks and reconciliation between high key rate and high realistic security in the same network. Then we make the MDI networks more robust. We design an MDI-QKD networking scheme for multi-user access where more than two users can generate keys synchronously regardless of aligning reference frames and compensating channel disturbance on polarization. Third, we find a general method to distil secure keys from quantum discord, which is different to the previous entanglement-based frameworks of MDI-QKD, allowing imperfect preparation and measurement of quantum states. The series of work can help the practical application of MDI-QKD networks, and promote the development of quantum networks.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) uses the laws of quantum mechanics to distribute secret keys with information-theoretic security. To realize QKD for secure communications among multiple distant users, fiber-based QKD networks can be deployed with today's available technologies. Incorporating QKD into existing wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) network infrastructure provides a practical way to reduce the difficulty and cost of QKD networking. Nonetheless, the costs of QKD nodes and QKD links are still considered as the major barriers to long-distance QKD network deployment in practice. In this work, we study how to minimize the cost of deploying QKD-over-WDM backbone networks. We introduce a general architecture of QKD-over-WDM backbone networks. A novel cost-oriented model is defined to elaborate the cost-minimized problem, in which various QKD network components including QKD transceivers, QKD auxiliary equipment for QKD backbone nodes and trusted repeater nodes (TRNs), and QKD links are considered. The physical-layer parameters such as secret-key rate, physical distance, and the layout of TRNs are also incorporated in our defined model. We develop an integer linear programming (ILP) model and a novel cost-efficient QKD networking (CEQN) heuristic algorithm to address the cost-minimized problem. The extensive simulations indicate that our proposed approaches are effective in reducing the cost of deploying QKD-over-WDM backbone networks, where the designed CEQN algorithm is efficient to demonstrate similar to the ILP model. Finally, some open issues in future work are discussed, given that this work only presents an early highlevel analysis as opposed to a definitive detailed model.
For the security requirements of high-speed and large-capacity transmission, quantum key distribution technology plays an important role in optical networks. In the process of deploying QKD networks in the future, the partially- trusted QKD network will be a more realistic scenario. To solve the QKD with an untrusted relay, MDI-QKD protocol is designed, In MDI-QKD, two QKD nodes send the quantum states to the untrusted relay and the measurement device in the untrusted relay measures the received quantum states. Based on the overall feasibility of QKD-integrated optical networks and the common tree topologies in backbone optical networks, this paper proposes a quantum key distribution method and a routing algorithm in a partially-trusted QKD tree-topology network by combining the trusted relay technology and MDI- QKD protocol and considering the quantum key pool. Simulation results show that the proposed TT-AR algorithm is effective for tree topologies.