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A quantum key distribution (QKD) network is currently being implemented in Vienna by integrating seven QKD-link devices that connect five subsidiaries of Siemens Austria. We give an architectural overview of the network and present the enabling QKD technologies, as well as the novel QKD network protocols.

This paper discusses a computing architecture that uses both classical parallelism and quantum parallelism. We consider a large parallel array of small quantum computers, connected together by classical communication channels. This kind of computer is called a type-II quantum computer, to differentiate it from a globally phase-coherent quantum computer, which is the first type of quantum computer that has received nearly exclusive attention in the literature. Although a hybrid, a type-II quantum computer retains the crucial advantage allowed by quantum mechanical superposition that its computational power grows exponentially in the number of phase-coherent qubits per node, only short-range and short time phase-coherence is needed, which significantly reduces the level of engineering facility required to achieve its construction. Therefore, the primary factor limiting its computational power is an economic one and not a technological one, since the volume of its computational medium can in principle scale indefinitely.

A quantum network may be realized by the entanglement of particles communicated by qubits between quantum computers, where the entangled photons of light are transferred for communication purposes. This technology has been proven to be feasible experimentally through free-space distribution of entangled photon pairs. Sending photons of light through nonlinear crystals produces correlated photon pairs, by splitting each photon into two half particles with each particle having the same level of energy, which results in entangled pairs. This entanglement is represented by photons, having both either horizontal or vertical polarization. This paper investigates collaborative robotic tasks of unmanned systems in a network where the agents are entangled. For instance, a leader robot sends two identical photons (e.g. with vertical polarization) to two follower robots/autonomous vehicles to communicate information about various tasks such as swarm, formation, trajectory tracking, path following and collaborative tasks. The potential advantages of quantum cooperation of robotic agents is the speed of the process, the ability to achieve security with immunity against cyberattacks, and fault tolerance, through entanglement. If a Quantum Network is implemented in a robotic application, it would present an effective solution; for example, for a group of unmanned systems working securely together. An analytical basis of such systems is investigated in this paper, and the formulation of quantum cooperation of unmanned systems is presented and discussed. The concept of experimental quantum entanglement, as well as quantum cryptography (QC), for robotics applications is presented.

We propose a theoretical model for the single photon quantum router that consists of two plasmonic waveguides, one of which is infinite and the other is semi-infinite, coupled to two two-level quantum dots (QDs) with dipole–dipole interaction (DDI). The infinite waveguide, the main branch, couples with both QDs, and the semi-infinite, the side branch, couples with the main branch at the position of one of the QDs. In such a system the incident single photon can also be transferred to the side branch, not only be transmitted or reflected. The results show that the transfer rate mainly depends on the coupling strength between the QDs and the two waveguides, but there exists a certain limit in the increase of the transfer rate. The DDI between the QDs gives a remarkable change to the routing spectra and the routing properties are different according to the position of the side branch. The proposed system is indeed multi-channel single photon quantum router, which has more practical significance than the one-dimensional router and can be employed in multi-user quantum networking.