Low-brightness quantum radar

Abstract

One of the major scientific thrusts from recent years has been to try to harness quantum phenomena to dramatically increase the performance of a wide variety of classical information processing devices. These advances in quantum information science have had a considerable impact on the development of standoff sensors such as quantum radar. In this paper we analyze the theoretical performance of low-brightness quantum radar that uses entangled photon states. We use the detection error probability as a measure of sensing performance and the interception error probability as a measure of stealthiness. We compare the performance of quantum radar against a coherent light sensor (such as lidar) and classical radar. In particular, we restrict our analysis to the performance of low-brightness standoff sensors operating in a noisy environment. We show that, compared to the two classical standoff sensing devices, quantum radar is stealthier, more resilient to jamming, and more accurate for the detection of low reflectivity targets.