Quantum key distribution (QKD) constitutes a symmetric secret key negotiation protocol capable of maintaining information-theoretic security. Given the recent advances in QKD networks, they have evolved from academic research to some preliminary applications. A QKD network consists of two or more QKD nodes interconnected by optical fiber or free space links. The secret keys are negotiated between any pair of QKD nodes, and then they can be delivered to multiple users in various areas for ensuring long-term protection and forward secrecy. We commence by introducing the QKD basics, followed by reviewing the development of QKD networks and their implementation in practice. Subsequently, we describe the general QKD network architecture, its elements, as well as its interfaces and protocols. Next, we provide an in-depth overview of the associated physical layer and network layer solutions, followed by the standardization efforts as well as the application scenarios associated with QKD networks. Finally, we discuss the potential future research directions and provide design guidelines for QKD networks.

The recent launch of the Micius quantum-enabled satellite heralds a major step forward for long-range quantum communication. Using single-photon discrete-variable quantum states, this exciting new development proves beyond any doubt that all of the quantum protocols previously deployed over limited ranges in terrestrial experiments can in fact be translated to global distances via the use of low-orbit satellites. In this work we survey the imminent extension of space-based quantum communication to the continuous-variable regime -the quantum regime perhaps most closely related to classical wireless communications. The continuous variable (CV) regime offers the potential for increased communication performance, and represents the next major step forward for quantum communications and the development of the global quantum internet.

Communication security has to evolve to a higher plane in the face of the threat from the massive computing power of the emerging quantum computers. Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) constitutes a promising branch of quantum communication, which is provably secure and overcomes the threat of quantum computing, whilst conveying secret messages directly via the quantum channel. In this survey, we highlight the motivation and the status of QSDC research with special emphasis on its theoretical basis and experimental verification. We will detail the associated point-to-point communication protocols and show how information is protected and transmitted. Finally, we discuss the open challenges as well as the future trends of QSDC networks, emphasizing again that QSDC is not a pure quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol, but a fully-fledged secure communication scheme.

The near-capacity performance of classical low-density parity check (LDPC) codes and their efficient iterative decoding makes quantum LDPC (QLPDC) codes a promising candidate for quantum error correction. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of QLDPC codes from the perspective of code design as well as in terms of their decoding algorithms. We also conceive a modified non-binary decoding algorithm for homogeneous Calderbank-Shor-Steane-type QLDPC codes, which is capable of alleviating the problems imposed by the unavoidable length-four cycles. Our modified decoder outperforms the state-of-the-art decoders in terms of their word error rate performance, despite imposing a reduced decoding complexity. Finally, we intricately amalgamate our modified decoder with the classic uniformly reweighted belief propagation for the sake of achieving an improved performance.

Faster, ultra-reliable, low-power, and secure communications has always been high on the wireless evolutionary agenda. However, the appetite for faster, more reliable, greener, and more secure communications continues to grow. The state-of-the-art methods conceived for achieving the performance targets of the associated processes may be accompanied by an increase in computational complexity. Alternatively, a degraded performance may have to be accepted due to the lack of jointly optimized system components. In this survey we investigate the employment of quantum computing for solving problems in wireless communication systems. By exploiting the inherent parallelism of quantum computing, quantum algorithms may be invoked for approaching the optimal performance of classical wireless processes, despite their reduced number of cost-function evaluations. In this contribution we discuss the basics of quantum computing using linear algebra, before presenting the operation of the major quantum algorithms, which have been proposed in the literature for improving wireless communications systems. Furthermore, we investigate a number of optimization problems encountered both in the physical and network layer of wireless communications, while comparing their classical and quantum-assisted solutions. Finally, we state a number of open problems in wireless communications that may benefit from quantum computing.

Hybrid Transmit Precoding (TPC) is one of the most compelling solutions for millimeter wave (mmWave) multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) systems. However, most attention has been focused on narrow-band scenarios. Hence, we dedicate our efforts to the design of hybrid TPC for wideband mmWave MIMO systems, where the beam squint dramatically affects the system performance. We firstly show that the channel matrices of the different subcarriers possess distinct subspaces in case of high bandwidths, hence traditional hybrid TPC schemes suffer from an eroded performance. Therefore, we propose novel hybrid TPC schemes exploiting the full channel state information (CSI), which project all frequencies to the central frequency and construct the common analog TPC matrix for all subcarriers. Moreover, we propose several low-complexity array-vector based hybrid TPC schemes. The high-complexity manifold optimization based hybrid TPC method and the fully digital TPC operating with and without considering beam squint are provided as benchmarks. Our extensive numerical simulations show that the proposed hybrid TPC schemes are capable of achieving similar performance to the excessive-complexity fully digital TPC, when the bandwidth tends to 0.5 GHz and always outperform the traditional hybrid TPC schemes.