{"id":118575,"date":"2021-01-15T21:22:45","date_gmt":"2021-01-16T05:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/quantum-drones-take-flight"},"modified":"2021-01-15T21:22:45","modified_gmt":"2021-01-16T05:22:45","slug":"quantum-drones-take-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/quantum-drones-take-flight","title":{"rendered":"Quantum Drones Take Flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A small prototype of a drone-based quantum network has successfully relayed a quantum signal over a kilometer of free space.<\/p>\n

The airwaves are chock full of \u201cclassical\u201d information from cell phones, radio stations, and Wi-Fi hubs, but one day those waves could be carrying quantum encrypted messages or data input for a quantum computer. A new experiment has used a pair of hovering drones to dole out quantum information to two ground stations separated by 1 km [1<\/a>]. This demonstration could lead to a drone-based quantum network that could be positioned\u2014and easily repositioned\u2014over a city or rural area.<\/p>\n

Quantum communication promises fully secure message sharing. For example, two users could exchange encrypted messages using \u201centangled\u201d photons, pairs of particles with a unique quantum-mechanical relationship. For every pair, one photon would be sent to each of the users, who would be alerted to any eavesdropping by a loss of entanglement between the photons. One of the most common methods for sending such quantum encrypted messages relies on optical fibers (see Viewpoint: Record Distance for Quantum Cryptography<\/a>). But in fibers, a large fraction of the photons scatter before reaching their destination. More photons can survive if quantum information is transmitted through the atmosphere, as in the quantum link established using a Chinese satellite in 2018 (see Focus: Intercontinental, Quantum-Encrypted Messaging and Video<\/a>). However, satellites are expensive and difficult to adapt to changing demands on the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A small prototype of a drone-based quantum network has successfully relayed a quantum signal over a kilometer of free space. The airwaves are chock full of \u201cclassical\u201d information from cell phones, radio stations, and Wi-Fi hubs, but one day those waves could be carrying quantum encrypted messages or data input for a quantum computer. A [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,1488,1625,1512,1617,2028],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-drones","category-encryption","category-mobile-phones","category-quantum-physics","category-satellites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}