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OptoElectronics and Communications Conference and International Conference on Photonics in Switching and Computing (OECC/PSC)

Secure Free-Space Optical Communication via Ranging and Phase Encryption Integration

Zhifeng Yue, Yinjun Liu, Yaxuan Li, Penghao Luo, Boyu Dong, Jianyang Shi, Nan Chi, Junwen Zhang

Published Jun 29, 2025• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

We propose a novel secure free-space optical (FSO) communication scheme that seamlessly integrates ranging and phase encryption. Experimental demonstration over a 40-GBaud, 30-m FSO link is successfully validated, enabling flexible decoding distance-range and enhanced security.
DOI
10.23919/oecc/psc62146.2025.11109903

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Free-space optical (FSO) links in satellite networks, unmanned aerial vehicle swarms, and dense indoor deployments face increasing interception threats owing to beam divergence and platform motion compromising narrow-beam security. Integrating ranging with phase-based encryption, this work proposes and experimentally demonstrates a high-speed secure FSO communication system over a 0.5 m to 0.6 m flexible link. System features include a tunable decodable distance range and enhanced eavesdropping resistance, employing 16-ary Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (16QAM) and 64QAM and achieving a maximum transmission rate of 20 Gbps.
The Free Space Optical Communication (FSOC) technology has gained widespread popularity due to its multitude of advantages. FSOC offers enhanced security due to its narrow beam, Line-of-Sight (LoS) nature, and resistance to Electromagnetic Interference (EMI). However, ensuring data confidentiality in case of interception is critical. This work demonstrates data encryption using the Advanced Encryption Standard-128 (AES-128) to secure FSOC links. An encrypted optical signal was transmitted over a 2 km link and successfully decrypted at the receiver, ensuring that intercepted data remains unintelligible without the decryption key. This approach enhances FSOC’s reliability for secure transmission of sensitive or confidential information.
Free Space Optical (FSO) communication has potential terrestrial and non-terrestrial applications. It allows large bandwidth for higher data transfer capacity. Due to its high directivity, it has a potential security advantage over traditional radio frequency (RF) communications. However, eavesdropping attacks are still possible in long non-terrestrial transmission FSO links, where the geometry of the link allows foreign flying objects such as Unmanned Aerial vehicles (UAVs) and drones to interrupt the links. This exposes non-terrestrial FSO links to adversary security attacks. Hence, data security techniques implementation is required to achieve immune FSO communication links. Unlike the commonly proposed physical layer security techniques, this paper presents a lab-based demonstration of a secured FSO communication link based on data cryptography using the GNU Radio platform and software-defined radio (SDR) hardware. The utilized encryption algorithm (Xsalsa20) in this paper requires high-time complexity to be broken by power-limited flying objects that interrupt the FSO beam. The results show that implementing cryptographic encryption techniques into FSO systems provided resilience against eavesdropping attacks and preserved data security. The experiment results show that, at a distance of 250 mm and laser output power of 10 mW, the system achieves a packet delivery rate of 92% and transmission rate of 10 Mbit/s. This is because the SDR used in this experiment requires a minimum received electrical amplitude of 27.5 mV to process the received signal. Long distance and higher data rates can be achieved using less sensitive SDR hardware.
Abstract To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to build a secure free space optical communication system with a high bit rate of 80 Gb/s wavelength division multiplexing using a Hill coding cipher. The signal message was encrypted by applying an algorithm secure coding. According to the obtained results, in the event of favorable weather (fog), the link distance was about 4.4 km. The link distance was degraded in the bad weather (dust) to become 1.4. Furthermore, the suggested system has a communication merit (bitrate product repeater distance) of roughly 352 Gb/s km in fog conditions and 112 Gb/s km in dust conditions. This is regarded as the highest communication merit when compared to prior attempts and investigations. The effectiveness of the proposed encryption cipher has also been evaluated by a revision of various security studies, key space, correlations, histogram analyses, and results comparison with other alternative approaches. When compared to earlier studies and researches, this is thought to have the best communication merit. In addition, According to the outcomes, integrating cryptographic encryption and decryption methods into FSO systems maintained data security and offered resistance to eavesdropping assaults.
Free-space optical (FSO) communications can offer secure connectivity thanks to the high directionality of the laser beam and the line-of-sight configuration. These security advantages are employed to realize high-speed key establishment between two distant parties, which is provably secure against an eavesdropper with unlimited computational resources. Besides, a well-maintained laser beam divergence allows group key agreement (GKA) among multiple parties. Here, we propose a novel method of GKA over FSO link—FSO-GKA. After numerically characterizing fundamental behaviors, we present a proof-of-concept demonstration of FSO-GKA using a 7.8-km terrestrial link. We achieve a group key rate of roughly 8 Mbps over a 58dB-loss channel based on 10-MHz on-off keying. We also investigate information leakage risks under several atmospheric conditions, which provides the basis for security certification of FSO-GKA. Our proposed scheme shows a new way to construct high-speed key exchange platforms.