G. A. Tyler Associates, Inc. — Department of Defense STTR Phase I: ABSTRACT: The proposed effort builds upon previous results obtained independently by the

Description

ABSTRACT: The proposed effort builds upon previous results obtained independently by the Optical Sciences Company and in collaboration with the DARPA InPho Program and other AFRL activities to develop a quantum communication system between ground links and a constellation of satellites. To address the losses in the link an advanced adaptive optics system is used to provide a robust classical channel between the transmitter and receiver. In addition the standard polarization based protocol is enhanced by using MUB states in time (or perhaps space) to improve channel capacity and security by ensuring that each detected photon carries multiple Bits of information. BENEFIT: This work will advance the state-of-art in free space quantum key distribution in particular and quantum communication in general. We propose to enhance the performance of recent ground-to-space link technology using an enhanced protocol by using sophisticated adaptive optics technology to enhance link efficiency and by utilizing time (or spatial) encoding to enhance the channel capacity. In particular this work will ensure that ground-to-space, space-to-ground and satellite constellation links will be a reality.