Gravity-enhanced quantum spatial target detection

Quantum illumination is one of the most basic ways to realize the quantum radar for detection of low-reflectivity targets embedded in a thermal-noise bath. It preserves a strong advantage over the classical counterparts even though its fragile quantum entanglement is completely destroyed by a large amount of noise and losses. In this paper, we describe and analyze a discrete-variable quantum illumination system with ancillary degrees of freedom of entangled photon pairs. Comparing the error probability bound, i.e., the quantum Chernoff bound, we identify that this system indeed offers higher accuracy than the single-photon illumination and quantum illumination with single degree of freedom of entangled photon pairs. Furthermore, the utilization of ancillary degrees of freedom exponentially enhances signal-to-noise ratio over quantum illumination without ancillary degrees of freedom. It means that this system reduces the necessary amount of signal photons to accurately determine whether the object is present or absent in the target region, which is absolutely crucial to the stealthiness of the radar system.

Quantum illumination leverages entanglement to surpass classical target detection, even in high-noise environments. Remarkably, its quantum advantage persists despite entanglement degradation caused by environmental decoherence. A central challenge lies in designing optimal receivers to exploit this advantage, with the correlation-to-displacement (C→D) conversion module emerging as a promising candidate. However, practical implementation remains technically demanding, particularly in realizing a low-noise programmable mode selector. In this work, we propose a scheme for the C→D module that incorporates a cavity-enhanced quantum pulse gate for programmable mode processing, achieving performance close to the theoretical optimum. This integrated framework paves the way for the realization of practical quantum illumination systems.

The authors consider a quantum radar which operates on the quantum illumination principle. The authors’ attention is focused on its function of target detection in a noisy environment. The role of the optical parametric amplifier (OPA) in detection is first examined by the authors, and a dual‐OPA design for more flexible combination of optimised gains is proposed, resulting in a detector substantially improved in its performance from the normally used 1‐OPA design. Then, the use of the entanglement information in the covariance matrix (CM) between the returned signal and idler beams for detection is considered, and a technique to extract such information is proposed. By employing some statistical relationships between positive definite matrices, the authors come up with a new target detection method. Numerical experiments confirm the superior detection performance of the CM detectors compared to that of the OPA detectors.

Quantum two-mode squeezed (QTMS) radar, inspired by quantum illumination but without joint measurements in the receiver, has shown promise in target detection. However, the current prototype of quantum radar, using full-microwave superconducting components, faces challenges in achieving long-range performance. In this study, we propose the integration of an array of Josephson parametric amplifiers (JPAs) in a dilution refrigerator to enhance the performance of QTMS quantum radar. Through the evaluation of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) metrics, we demonstrate the effectiveness of this enhancing strategy. Our results indicate that the presence of an array of two JPAs significantly improves both the SNR and the detection probability compared to a single JPA configuration, thereby boosting the overall performance of QTMS radar. The key factor of this improvement is the cross-correlation between JPAs, which has a notable impact on the analytical outcomes of the quantum radar. This research provides valuable insights to engineers who want to optimize the design of advanced quantum QTMS radar systems.

Chapter 7 - Quantum of radar theory

Quantum radar based on the mechanism of quantum physics and the quantum information is a new sensing technology that was developed to solve technology bottleneck of classic radar. Especially, The Quantum illumination based on entanglement light beam could overcome noise and information loss. In this paper, the principle of quantum radar is introduced in detail, and the quantum illumination radar scheme using entangled photons is discussed. Then, target detection method based on entangled photons is given, and simulation results are showed. Finally, it is demonstrated by experiments that the performance of entangled photon detection system is superior to non-entangled photon detection system in a noisy and lossy environment, and the targets appear to look bigger when looked with low photon number.

It is well known that quantum illumination with a two-mode squeezed vacuum state as an initial entangled bipartite state achieves 6 dB quantum advantage in the error probability compared to classical coherent-state illumination. Is entanglement the only resource responsible for the quantum advantage? We explore this issue by applying the various squeezing operators to the two-mode squeezed vacuum state. Even though the operations do not decrease the bipartite entanglement, it is shown that the quantum advantage drastically decreases with increasing the squeezing parameters. Based on the fact, we conclude that entanglement is not unique resource responsible for the quantum advantage.

Most current microwave quantum illumination techniques rely on hybrid quantum systems to detect the presence of targets. However, real-world radar tasks are considerably more intricate than this simplistic model. Accurately determining physical attributes such as object speed, position, and azimuth is also essential. In this study, we explore azimuth detection using a quantum illumination approach based on a cavity-optomagnonics system and analyze the accuracy of azimuth detection in this framework. Our results indicate that this approach significantly outperforms classical microwave radar in azimuth detection within the parameters of current existing experiments. Additionally, we investigate the impact of Kerr nonlinearity of the YIG sphere on azimuth detection accuracy, revealing a clear improvement with the incorporation of Kerr nonlinearity.

Quantum illumination uses entangled light that consists of signal and idler modes to achieve higher detection rate of a low-reflective object in noisy environments. The best performance of quantum illumination can be achieved by measuring the returned signal mode together with the idler mode. Thus, it is necessary to prepare a quantum memory that can keep the idler mode ideal. To send a signal towards a long-distance target, entangled light in the microwave regime is used. There was a recent demonstration of a microwave quantum memory using microwave cavities coupled with a transmon qubit. We propose an ordering of bosonic operators to efficiently compute the Schrieffer–Wolff transformation generator to analyze the quantum memory. Our proposed method is applicable to a wide class of systems described by bosonic operators whose interaction part represents a definite number of transfer in quanta.

We consider the problem of estimating unknown transmittance <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\theta$</tex-math></inline-formula> of a target bathed in thermal background light. As quantum estimation theory yields the fundamental limits, we employ the lossy thermal-noise bosonic channel model, which describes sensor-target interaction quantum mechanically in many practical active-illumination systems (e.g., using emissions at optical, microwave, or radio frequencies). We prove that quantum illumination using two-mode squeezed vacuum (TMSV) states asymptotically achieves minimal quantum Cramér-Rao bound (CRB) over all quantum states (not necessarily Gaussian) in the limit of low transmitted power. We characterize the optimal receiver structure for TMSV input, and show its advantage over other receivers using both analysis and Monte Carlo simulation.

We started to research quantum illumination radar and quantum imaging by utilizing high quality continuous-wave two-mode squeezed light source as a quantum entanglement resource. Two-mode squeezed light is a macroscopic quantum entangled state of the electro-magnetic field and shows strong correlation between quadrature phase amplitudes of each optical field. One of the most effective methods to generate two-mode squeezed light is combining two independent single-mode squeezed lights by using a beam splitter with relative phase of 90 degrees between each optical field. As a first stage of our work we are developing two-mode squeezed light source for exploring the possibility of quantum illumination radar and quantum imaging. In this article we introduce current development of experimental investigation of single-mode squeezed light. We utilize a sub-threshold optical parametric oscillator with bow-tie configuration which includes a periodically-polled potassium titanyl phosphate crystal as a nonlinear optical medium. We observed the noise level of squeezed quadrature −3.08±0.13 dB and anti-squeezed quadrature at 9.29±0.13 dB, respectively. We also demonstrated the remote tuning of squeezing level of the light source which leads to the technology for tuning the quantum entanglement in order to adapt to the actual environmental condition.

Quantum radar has been proposed in the quantum information science literature as a novel approach to sensing that can offer a substantial gain over existing, classical sensors. In particular, a quantum radar based on quantum entanglement, termed quantum illumination radar, has been theoretically shown to demonstrate superiority over the optimal classical sensor, and there have been some experimental validation. However, all of the existing literature in the subject is in language, terminology and metrics that are completely unfamiliar (or relevant) to classical radar experts, and as a result there is understandable skepticism among the radar experts. This paper attempts to bridge the large gap between practical radar scientists and quantum information science (QIS) experts working in the field. We review the theoretical state-of-the-art in field and examine some of the claims in the literature in terms of metrics of relevance to radar detection, tracking and sensor fusion. We also discuss some possible technological routes to building such a radar across the electromagnetic spectrum.

The previous authors’ works have shown that the system of quasi-optimal linear spatial filtering, due to the restriction of this class of filters, related to the superposition principle, has very limited capacity to suppress the most critical interference spatially inhomogeneous background. Such partial suppression does not meet extreme approach requirements for providing high probability characteristics to detect small targets in the most difficult background conditions. In this regard, there is a conclusion that it is necessary to find a different approach, in which the result of the system operation in complex background does not depend on the level of the background noise at the input. This article performs an engineering synthesis of the system with the artificial visual intelligence elements, which recognizes a class of the small-sized radiating objects with the suppression of the most critical interference through nonlinear topological selection. Consideration of this problem begins with the formation of the filter-discriminator aperture, which is a basis for this theory, «echoing» with the theory of optimal nonlinear filtering spatial Poisson processes. Thus, formation of the optimized nonlinear filter structure is based on the optimal linear filter (Wiener filter) structure. As a result, there are three versions of filter apertures (4-, 8- and 16-connected ones), with one of which later providing operations of the object shape discrimination. The focus of the article is, mainly, on the 8-connected aperture, as the average in balance of efficiency and complexity option. The article pays considerable attention to development of signs and algorithms to select the objects by size and shape. It shows that selection on a uniform background is possible by the maximum value of the first derivative and to separate the most critical form of Markov’s field inhomogeneities and background brightness, as the fragments of component boundaries of macrostructure background – edges («steps») and targets, you must use the anisotropy coefficients of the first and second order. The result of using the system, most effectively separating of signs, was the formation of the so-called «areas of selection». Mathematical models of the target and interference of parametrically-stochastic approach, as well as simulation on a semi-natural test frame with a fairly complex background «scene», proved the fundamental capability of the synthesized circuits to suppress radically the sources of interference signals, which are tens and even hundreds times greater than the signals from targets at the input. Thus, unlike the method based on optimal linear filtering, this approach allows the nonlinear «blockers» to suppress completely interference previously recognized by topological discriminators. Control sampling of points of the semi-natural frame enabled us to estimate conditional probabilities of a true solution of the target detection problem. The estimate has shown that the obtained probability of missing the target and false alarm are quite acceptable the values that make up a few percent. Obtained results show the incomparable advantages in complex background situation of presented non-linear method as compared to its traditional linear analogues.

Quantum radar is a new detection technology based on the mechanism of quantum physics and is promising for enhancing radar target detection capability. In this letter, the quantum radar equation is established based on the traditional radar equation; meanwhile, how the quantum radar cross section (QRCS) influences target detection performance and how QRCSs for some typical targets distribute are investigated via simulations. Simulation results demonstrate that the signal-to-noise ratio increases with the QRCS, the peak values of side-lobes of the QRCS for the cylinder surface fluctuate little, and the QRCS for corner reflectors almost exhibits no variations in a wide range of incident angles. The results listed above can benefit the signal design and performance evaluation of quantum radar as well as the design of quantum stealthy targets.

Stealth planes currently go under the radar, figuratively speaking, but maybe the higher definition promised by quantum radars could be used to expose them. Radar technology has become an ever more important tool in warfare since the Second World War, used to monitor the electromagnetic spectrum to detect and track enemy aircraft, missiles, satellites and other systems that in turn have grown more sophisticated in evading detection. Building better, more sensitive and harder-to-detect radar systems remains a key focus for defence manufacturers today, especially since in October 2018 the US Navy designated the electromagnetic spectrum as a warfighting domain on par with sea, land, air, space and cyber. Last year, China's biggest defence electronics company, state-owned China Electronics Technology Group, announced it had developed a next-generation quantum radar system' that, it claimed, can detect ballistic missiles and other objects flying at high speed through space. Two years previously, the group said it had tested a quantum radar to a range of 100km (60 miles). The expectation is that quantum radar, due to the unique behaviour of quantum entanglement, could, among other things, 'un-stealth' aircraft by detecting objects with a greater level of accuracy than conventional radar. Therefore, if China's announcement is true - and it hasn't provided any evidence to back its claim - it would be a huge win for both its defence and quantum capabilities.