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IEEE Annual Information Technology, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference (IEMCON)

Python-Based Architectural Framework of End-to-End BB84 Noise Simulation

Larry McMahan, Aditya Das, Sophia Ren, Samiha Das, Elaine Huang, Sai Sanjay Devi, Ashvik Ghosh

Published Oct 29, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) provides a novel alternative to Classical Key Distribution in protecting secure communications, but poses challenges in terms of research and widespread adoption. While the resource-intensive nature of QKD setups limit experimental studies to specialized laboratories, we present an end-to-end simulation that models photon generation, transmission, and detection, thereby lowering the barrier to testing hypotheses regarding experimental setups under realistic conditions. In this study, a fiber optic-based simulation is utilized along with a quantum circuit and a detailed noise model within the BB84 protocol to recreate an experimental setup. Our BB84 simulation retained ≈50% of transmitted bits after sifting, matching the experimental expectations. Our model incorporates customizable noise, such as multi-photon emissions and channel disturbances, directly into the key exchange process, allowing for an approach that utilizes simulated fiber optics and theoretical noise models to replicate physical conditions. Our findings support the development of QKD as a scalable solution for securing the quantum internet and future communication networks.

DOI
10.1109/iemcon67450.2025.11381158

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With the rapid advancement of quantum technologies, quantum key distribution (QKD) has become a key approach to secure communication. This study presents a software-only implementation of the BB84 QKD protocol developed in Python using IBM’s Qiskit Aer simulator. The proposed framework is designed for educational and prototyping purposes rather than for hardware-level security evaluation. The simulator models the core stages of BB84: random bit/basis generation, state preparation, basis-dependent measurement, sifting, and parameter estimation via QBER, followed by conceptual post-processing. Evaluation reports (i) the expected sifted-key ratio under random basis selection, (ii) the ideal-channel QBER behavior under noise-free Aer execution, and (iii) the theoretical intercept–resend detection probability derived from standard BB84 analysis. For sequences of ≥100 bits, the implementation matches standard BB84 expectations under ideal Aer execution: an expected sifted-key ratio of ≈50%, QBER → 0 in the absence of adversarial interference, and an intercept–resend detection probability above 99.9% for m = 100 disclosed verification bits. These results demonstrate that an idealized virtual environment can reproduce the BB84 measurement–disturbance trade-off in the information-theoretic sense, without claiming physical decoherence modeling unless an explicit Aer noise model is enabled. The analysis focuses on idealized BB84 behavior, where disturbance arises solely from basis mismatch and intercept– resend measurements rather than from physical decoherence or hardware noise models. The framework provides a reproducible platform for teaching and early-stage experimentation, with future work targeting realistic noise models and advanced post-processing.
Autonomous "Things" is becoming the future trend as the role, and responsibility of IoT keep diversifying. Its applicability and deployment need to re-stand technological advancement. The versatile security interaction between IoTs in human-to-machine and machine-to-machine must also endure mathematical and computational cryptographic attack intricacies. Quantum cryptography uses the laws of quantum mechanics to generate a secure key by manipulating light properties for secure end-to-end communication. We present a proof-of-principle via a communication architecture model and implementation to simulate these laws of nature. The model relies on the BB84 quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol with two scenarios, without and with the presence of an eavesdropper via the interception-resend attack model from a theoretical, methodological, and practical perspective. The proposed simulation initiates communication over a quantum channel for polarized photon transmission after a pre-agreed configuration over a Classic Channel with parameters. Simulation implementation results confirm that the presence of an eavesdropper is detectable during key generation due to Heisenberg's uncertainty and no-cloning principles. An eavesdropper has a 0.5 probability of guessing transmission qubit and 0.25 for the polarization state. During simulation re-iterations, a base-mismatch process discarded about 50 percent of the total initial key bits with an Error threshold of 0.11 percent.
The absence of real single-photon sources is a significant limitation to the experimental implementation of the BB84 quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol. When substantially attenuated laser pulses are substituted for ideal sources in practical systems, the outcome is weak coherent states where each pulse has a nonzero probability of having multiple photons rather than pure single-photon emission. To evaluate quantum bit error rate (QBER), key generation rate and overall system security it is essential to describe the exact impact of the optical and physical system on such pulses. This practical tradeoff presents additional issues. It is crucial to understand how QBER is impacted by attenuation, loss, dispersion, depolarisation and detector properties particularly in adversarial scenarios such as photon number splitting (PNS) and beam-splitting attacks. Although a significant amount of research has been conducted on algorithmic simulations of BB84, there are few complete frameworks that can physically explain these effects and their impact on QBER. This work models the BB84 protocol at the physical level by developing a Python-based simulation platform that takes into account all significant channel impairments and system inefficiencies. The framework supports both theoretical and practical optimisation of QKD systems by further isolating the effects of different optical losses and eavesdropping techniques on QBER and secure key generation.