World’s First “Quantum Drone” for Impenetrable Air-to-Ground Data Links Takes Off

IEEE Spectrum  June 18, 2019 Researchers in China have developed an eight-rotor octocopter drone whose 35-kilogram weight at takeoff, includes its onboard quantum communication system. The quantum drone can operate while hovering in midair for 40 minutes at a time. It can maintain two air-to-ground links, each roughly 100 meters long, and can receive and transmit entangled photons during the daytime, on a clear night, and even on a rainy night. According to some scientists a communications network featuring quantum drones could be stymied by a number of challenges such as photons scattering, absorbed, or otherwise lost on their way […]

Record-breaking chaotic data transmission

Phys.org May 29, 2019 Chaotic optical secure communications (COSC) are a kind of fast-speed hardware encryption technique at the physical layer. Researchers in China have developed a scheme of long-haul COSC, where the bit rate reaches 1.25 Gbits/s and the transmission distance up to 143 km. The low-cost device is built with off-the-shelf optical components and does not require dispersion compensating fibre (DCF) or forward-error correction. The results show that high-quality chaotic synchronisation can be maintained both in time- and frequency-domain, even after 143 km transmission; the bandwidth of the transmitter is enlarged by the external optical injection, which leads […]

Breakthrough research to revolutionise internet communication

Phys.org  April 18, 2019 To reduce the power consumed by the internet an international team of researchers (Germany, Austria, New Zealand, Russia) has created a device called a microresonator optical frequency comb made of a tiny disc of crystal. The device transforms a single colour of laser light into a rainbow of 160 different frequencies – each beam totally in sync with each other and perfectly stable. One such device could replace hundreds of power-consuming lasers currently used to encode and send data around the world. They expect the devices to be incorporated in sub-oceanic landing stations where all the […]

High-capacity transmission over multi-core fiber link with 19-core optical amplifier

Eurekalert  April 8, 2019 The successful development of Space-Division-Multiplexing (SDM) amplifiers is crucial for commercial realization of SDM technologies. Researchers in Japan developed a 19-core Erbium-doped-fiber amplifier utilizing cladding-pumping technology in order to share electrical power between the large number of spatial channels. The amplifier was integrated into a transmission test bed of for a record transmission demonstration. Fully decoded optical data transmission of 715 Tb/s was achieved over 2,009 km using coded polarization division multiplexed (PDM) -16 quadrature-amplitude modulation (QAM) of 345 carriers over the C and L band in a re-circulating transmission loop. The research enables development of […]

Engineering for high-speed devices

Science Daily  March 29, 2019 A team of researchers in the US (University of Delaware, industry, Columbia University) combined silicon with graphene which can transmit radiofrequency waves in less than a picosecond at a sub-terahertz bandwidth. Graphene has better carrier mobility and direct bandgap and allows for faster electron transmission and better electrical and optical properties. By combining silicon with graphene, scientists may be able to continue to utilize technologies that are already used with silicon devices. The research could add up to cheaper and faster wireless devices in the future. It could make the network stronger, better and cheaper…read […]

Future Communication Satellite

Next Big Future  March 5, 2019 The European Space Agency projected the shift from Geosynchronous satellites to medium and low earth orbit satellite constellations. This will drive large changes in the technologies that are used as well as the numbers of satellites, business models and changes to the economics of the satellite business. These satellites are only visible from within a small area (about 1000 km radius) beneath the satellite as it passes overhead. A large number of satellites are needed if the mission requires uninterrupted connectivity. Low earth orbiting satellites are less expensive to launch into orbit than geostationary […]

Data transfer by controlled noise

Phys.org  March 1, 2019 Researchers in Switzerland used double-slit experiment to show that correlations indicate how well one can predict, for instance, the oscillatory phase of one light wave if one knows the phase of the other wave. Even if both phases are noisy they can still do so in a more or less synchronized fashion. They have demonstrated that correlations exist between pairs of light waves, which means that the number of those correlations does not increase linearly with the number of light waves, but roughly quadratically. In principle, therefore, it should be possible to transmit six bits of […]

X-rays might be a better way to communicate in space

Phys.org  February 25, 2019 Since its inception in 1958, NASA has relied solely on radio communications to stay in contact with all of its missions beyond Earth. NASA is looking at X-ray communications (XCOM) through which more information could be sent with the same amount of transmission power, and less energy needed over long distances. X-rays can penetrate the hot plasma that builds up as spacecraft re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at hypersonic speeds. NASA (Goddard Space Center) has created Modulated X-ray Source (MXS), which will be tested in the coming years. MXS will be controlled using the NavCube to send encoded […]

Computational algorithm to reduce electromagnetic noise in electronic circuits developed

Science Daily  January 31, 2019 Researchers in Japan developed algorithm for computer simulation of electric circuits in which transmission lines are connected with lumped element models. They introduced the incidence matrix found in circuit theory and time domain impedance to connect partial differential equations and ordinary differential equations which are used to solve transmission line problems. Based on the results of calculations using this algorithm, the researchers demonstrated that EM noise could be reduced by using the symmetric 3-line configuration of the circuit. Their calculation method is for one-dimensional multi-conductor transmission lines, but they have already developed a calculation algorithm […]

Manhole Covers Serve as Antennas Expanding Wireless Network Coverage

IEEE Spectrum   December 18, 2018 High-speed bandwidth, and the use of the millimeter wave spectrum needed for 5G networks barely propagate around the corners of buildings. To overcome this issue, the strategy has been a combination of small cells with massive MIMO antennas to increase coverage. To manage to get all these small cells dispersed throughout a city landscape, researchers in the UK propose using manhole covers as antennas for mobile communications. It eliminates traffic disruptions from street construction, and there are no antennas awkwardly placed on buildings, marring the appearance of a neighborhood. The manhole does not interfere with […]