Abstract
Quantum cryptography (QC) is currently under investigation to build highly secure optical communication networks. QC requires distribution of quantum keys (also called "secret" keys) on separate wavelength channels than those used to transmit the encrypted data. Hence, we propose a quantum-secured passive optical network (QS-PON) that supports both i) the traditional wavelength channels for secured data transmission, and ii) a quantum key distribution network (QKDN) running on separate dedicated wavelengths. The QKDN generates and stores secret keys that are then assigned to users' demands served on traditional PON channels. To generate secret keys, quantum transmitters at the optical network units (ONUs) exchange qubits with a quantum receiver at the optical line terminal (OLT). Then, the generated secret keys are stored in quantum key pools (QKPs) installed at both OLT and the ONUs and assigned to users' demands. Point-to-multipoint QKD systems have been experimentally demonstrated over various forms of quantum access networks (QANs), showing that an efficient mechanism to generate and assign quantum keys based on traffic requests is a critical component of QANs. In this study, we present a new QS-PON architecture, and we propose a dynamic secret-key provisioning (DSKP) algorithm that effectively generates and assigns secret keys from users' demands. Our proposed DSKP algorithm features two phases, the lowest-first secret-key generation (LF-SKG) phase and the hierarchical-clustering secret-key consumption (HC-SKC) phase. In this study, we also provide an analytical model that describes how secret keys are generated and consumed in QKPs. In our illustrative numerical evaluation, we compare our algorithm for secret-key provisioning with a baseline IPACT-based solution in terms of service-rejection ratio, time-slot utilization, and guard- and relay-time saving. Results show that DSKP reduces service-rejection ratio and guard- and relay-time of about 16% and 39.54%, respectively.
Highlights
Data transmission in optical networks supports various types of network services, among which several are requiring a highly-secured communication substrate, such as online banking/trading, personal privacy, military applications, etc [1]
A possible architecture of QS-PON is shown in Fig. 1, which is a Quantum Access Network (QAN) built over a Time and Wavelength Division Multiplexed PON (TWDM-PON) infrastructure
The physical topology of a QS-PON can be modeled as a graph G(V, Wc, WQKD, quantum key pool (QKP) (Kcurr, Kthreshold, Kfull) ), where V denotes the network nodes, and Wc and WQKD refer to the sets of wavelengths used for normal optical communication and quantum key distribution (QKD), respectively; and the triplet QKP contains Kcurr, that represents current value of secret-key volume in QKP, Kthreshold that is threshold above which secret key generation (SKG) is triggered, and Kfull that is the capacity of the QKP
Summary
Data transmission in optical networks supports various types of network services, among which several are requiring a highly-secured communication substrate, such as online banking/trading, personal privacy, military applications, etc [1]. QKD in QAN can be achieved by using wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) [4,13] and time division multiplexing (TDM) [14,15], to share fiber wavelength with classical data channels These proposals demonstrate QAN physical feasibility, but the problem of how to dynamically allocate QKD wavelengths to generate secure keys for final users has not yet been investigated. Even though existing protocols for traditional PONs such as interleaved polling algorithm (IPACT) [17,18,19] could still be applied to manage time-slot allocation for the QKD, in such existing approaches the generated secret keys will need to be arranged for non-adjacent nodes by the cache devices like quantum key pool (QKP) [20,21,22]. To generate and assign secret keys for multiple users, we propose in this paper a dynamic secret-key provisioning (DSKP) algorithm in QS-PON to allocate time slots.
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