ZTE Communications ›› 2018, Vol. 16 ›› Issue (3): 52-58.DOI: 10.19729/j.cnki.1673-5188.2018.03.009

• Research Paper • Previous Articles     Next Articles

A Quantum Key Re-Transmission Mechanism for QKD-Based Optical Networks

WANG Hua1, ZHAO Yongli1, WANG Dajiang2, WANG Jiayu2, WANG Zhenyu2   

  1. 1.State Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical Communications, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, 100876, China
    2.Skill Transfer Management Department, ZTE Corporation, Beijing 100000, China
  • Online:2018-08-25 Published:2020-03-18
  • About author:WANG Hua (Whua@bupt.edu.cn) is currently working toward her Ph.D. degree in information and communications engineering at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), China. Her research interests include software defined optical networking and quantum communication.|ZHAO Yongli (yonglizhao@bupt.edu.cn) is currently an associate professor of the Institute of Information Photonics and Optical Communications, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), China. He received the B.S. degree in communication engineering and Ph.D. degree in electromagnetic field and microwave technology from BUPT. During Jan. 2016 to Jan. 2017, he was a visiting associate professor at UC Davis, USA. He has published more than 300 international journal and conference papers. Since 2015, he has become a senior member of IEEE. His research focuses on software defined optical networking, elastic optical networks, datacenter networking, and optical network security.|WANG Dajiang (wang.dajiang@zte.com.cn) is an experienced senior engineer and product planning manager of intelligent optical networks with ZTE Corporation. With 12 years of R&D experience in the intelligent optical network field, he has many optical-oriented SDN patents and was the core researcher of two “863” national scientific research projects of China.|WANG Jiayu (Wang.jiayu@zte.com.cn) is an experienced senior engineer and product planning manager of intelligent optical networks with ZTE Corporation. His research interest is intelligent optical networking.|WANG Zhenyu (Wang.zhenyu@zte.com.cn) is an experienced senior engineer and product planning manager of intelligent optical networks with ZTE Corporation. His research interest is intelligent optical networking.
  • Supported by:
    This work has been supported in part by NSFC project(61571058);This work has been supported in part by NSFC project(61601052);Science and Technology Project of State Grid Corporation of China: The Key Technology Research of Elastic Optical Network(526800160006);China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Project, and ZTE Industry-Academia-Research Cooperation Funds.(2016M600970)

Abstract:

Due to the vulnerability of fibers in optical networks, physical-layer attacks targeting photon splitting, such as eavesdropping, can potentially lead to large information and revenue loss. To enhance the existing security approaches of optical networks, a new promising technology, quantum key distribution (QKD), can securely encrypt services in optical networks, which has been a hotspot of research in recent years for its characteristic that can let clients know whether information transmission has been eavesdropped or not. In this paper, we apply QKD to provide secret keys for optical networks and then introduce the architecture of QKD based optical network. As for the secret keys generated by QKD in optical networks, we propose a re-transmission mechanism by analyzing the security risks in QKD-based optical networks. Numerical results indicate that the proposed re-transmission mechanism can provide strong protection degree with enhanced attack protection. Finally, we illustrated some future challenges in QKD-based optical networks.

Key words: optical networks, security, QKD, re-transmission