Abstract
The creation of the future quantum Internet requires the development of new systems, architectures, and communications protocols. As a matter of fact, the optical fiber technology is affected by extremely high losses; thus, the deployment of a quantum satellite network (QSN) composed of quantum satellite repeaters (QSRs) in low Earth orbit would make it possible to overcome these attenuation problems. For these reasons, we consider the design of an ad hoc quantum satellite backbone based on the Software-Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm with a modular two-tier Control Plane (CP). The first tier of the CP is embedded into a Master Control Station (MCS) on the ground, which coordinates the entire constellation and performs the management of the CP integrated into the constellation itself. This second tier is responsible for entanglement generation and management on the selected path. In addition to defining the SDN architecture in all its components, we present a possible protocol to generate entanglement on the end-to-end (E2E) path. Furthermore, we evaluate the performance of the developed protocol in terms of the latency required to establish entanglement between two ground stations connected via the quantum satellite backbone.
Highlights
The future quantum Internet (QI) is expected to interconnect quantum computers (QCs) in order to achieve unprecedented capabilities that are impossible to achieve by using only classical information [1,2]
According to the previous considerations, we propose a quantum network backbone composed of a constellation of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites controlled through a modular two-tier Control Plane (CP) based on Software-Defined Networking (SDN)
Considering that the studies conducted to date on quantum satellite backbone networks include the use of a single SDN controller [22], in this paper, we propose a system for the management of a quantum satellite backbone network consisting of quantum satellite repeaters (QSRs) focusing on the CP, with the following contributions: The design of a modular two-tier CP which includes an Master Control Station (MCS) and multiple controllers belonging to the constellation itself with entanglement generation and management functionalities; A Network Layer protocol for E2E entanglement generation designed for the presented architecture; A first protocol test with the aim of interconnecting two QCs on a practical LEO
Summary
The future quantum Internet (QI) is expected to interconnect quantum computers (QCs) in order to achieve unprecedented capabilities that are impossible to achieve by using only classical information [1,2]. Considering that in specific cases, such as distributed applications, the number of remote operations has to be minimized in order to limit the decoherence effects that disentangle quantum states [30,31] and to reduce the overhead due to the swapping operations [10], we have developed a Network Layer protocol with the goal of creating E2E entanglement between two ground stations (GSs) in an efficient manner. Considering that the studies conducted to date on quantum satellite backbone networks include the use of a single SDN controller [22], in this paper, we propose a system for the management of a quantum satellite backbone network consisting of quantum satellite repeaters (QSRs) focusing on the CP, with the following contributions: The design of a modular two-tier CP which includes an MCS and multiple controllers belonging to the constellation itself with entanglement generation and management functionalities;.
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