Quantum Key Service Provisioning in QKD-Enabled Optical Networks

초록

Quantum key distribution (QKD)-enabled optical networks utilize quantum mechanics to secure communications by establishing secure quantum channels. A critical criterion for QKD-enabled optical networks is ensuring network availability, which requires each quantum key service to adhere to a maximum unavailability constraint to maintain the network availability. This paper addresses the challenge of offering dedicated path protection for quantum key services in QKD-enabled optical networks. It ensures that the unavailability gap between the working and protection paths remains within the allowable limit for each quantum key service, adhering to specific unavailability constraints. Considering the constraints of the limited timeslot resources and network availability, we proposed quantum key service approach named a maximum availability (MA) algorithm. Simulation results indicate that the MA algorithm surpasses both the traditional dedicated-path protection (TDP) and fixed dedicated-path routing (FDR) algorithms in reducing total timeslot consumption and enhancing average availability.

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