Question: which of the following statements are correct?
i) DRDO has recently used quantum communication between two of its labs.
ii) Quantum communication is used for just increasing the speed of communication in the network.
iii) Technology used by DRDO for this is known as Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) technology.
a) only i
b) i and ii
c) i and iii
d) all of above
Answer: c)
Context
- The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has recently successfully demonstrated communication between its two labs using Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) technology.
Facts
- DRDO’s two labs the Defense Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) and The Research Centre Imarat (RCI) has participated in this demonstration of quantum communication between themselves.
- Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) technology was used for this communication network.
- Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) technology is used for providing very robust encryption system which makes the communication highly secure and very very difficult to penetrate.
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) technology
- In the QKD technology, encryption keys are sent as qubits in a fibre optic cable.
- Qubits are the smallest unit in quantum communication system. They are same as bits in classical computing system.
- Qubits are encoded on photons. QKD is designed in a way that if an illegitimate entity tries to read the transmission, it will disturb the qubits. This will generate transmission error and legitimate end user will be informed immediately.
- Time-bin encoding is used to encode qubit on a photon.
By – Kameshwar Shukla