CAREER: Using Entanglement to Enhance Communication and Sensing in the Presence of Noise

提出的CAREER项目将利用量子效应推动传感和通信技术的发展，同时加深对量子物理学的理解。虽然现代技术为人们提供了精确的传感工具和方便的通信设备，但对于许多要求苛刻的任务，其性能从根本上受到经典物理的限制，远远不能令人满意。需要量子效应来进一步提高性能。然而，在实际场景中，量子效应通常容易受到环境噪声的影响，这给量子技术的性能提升带来了挑战。该项目将解决噪声问题，并为实际传感和通信应用开发强大的量子协议，包括量子雷达、量子通信网络和量子传感器网络。该协议将以目前现成或近期可实现的设备和系统为特色。这些研究活动将与教育计划相结合，以培养下一代多样化的量子信息科学（QIS）工程师，这些工程师将在全球联系，创新驱动的世界中成为适应性和创造性的创新者，并充分考虑其工作的社会影响。对于教育计划，PI将：(1)每年夏天组织一次面向行业的研讨会，促进学术界和行业之间在QIS方面的合作环境；(2)开发一门新的量子信息系统课程，用量子传感和通信职业项目衍生的教育材料来补充标准课程；(3)开展本科生暑期研究项目，吸引不同背景的学生参与到CAREER研究中来。拟议的量子传感和通信系统设计将影响美国国家科学基金会的十大理念，并跨越对国家竞争力和繁荣至关重要的多个研究学科，包括量子信息、机器学习和光子学。预期的项目成果将适用于传感和通信任务，包括深空通信、雷达探测、惯性力传感和射频信号传感。这些成果将导致航空航天、化工、环保、金融、医疗保健和信息技术行业的创新，影响社会和美国经济。通过与通用动力、Arm有限公司和富达投资等工业合作伙伴合作，PI和他的团队将有助于将基础量子研究转化为工业技术。对于教育计划，建议：(1)劳动力发展研讨会将帮助美国工业员工和大学生为未来的量子边缘做好准备；(2)与PI小组的实践研究经验将使本科生获得解决问题的技能和对QIS的更深入的了解，以激励他们遵循QIS的职业道路。研究生将在PI的指导下获得直接的指导经验。拟议的CAREER项目将确定传感和通信任务的最终量子极限，并开发纠缠辅助（EA）协议，以近期技术推进现实世界的传感和通信场景。PI将提出、分析和验证协议设计，这些协议设计可以从EA量子脉冲压缩雷达、EA通信网络和EA传感器网络中存在噪声的纠缠中受益。项目团队将结合量子系统理论和建模中的数值和分析计算，并采用先进的机器学习工具进行变分电路优化。分析不同传感和通信系统的理论框架将为探索存在噪声的EA量子信息处理奠定坚实的基础，并将包括传感和通信建模，源和测量优化以及约束容量区域的技术。拟议的项目将从基础和实践的角度推进知识。在基础层面上，该研究将加深对二部和多部纠缠的运算意义的理解，并为多参数估计和分布参数估计提供范式：估计各种局部参数的全局属性。在应用和工程层面，设计的协议将指导用于获取、存储和处理信息的量子器件的近期发展，以实现在实践中实现纠缠效益的目标。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The proposed CAREER project will utilize quantum effects to advance the sensing and communication technology, and at the same time deepen the understanding of quantum physics. While modern technology has provided people precise sensing tools and convenient communication devices, for many demanding tasks, the performance is fundamentally limited by classical physics and is far from satisfying. Quantum effects are required to further boost performance. However, quantum effects are usually fragile to the environmental noise ambient in practical scenarios, which makes enhancing performance by quantum technology challenging. The proposed project will solve the noise issue and develop robust quantum protocols for practical sensing and communication applications, including quantum radar, quantum communication networks and quantum sensor networks. The protocols will feature devices and systems that are currently off-the-shelf or realizable in the near-term. These research activities will integrate with an education plan to prepare the next generation of diverse Quantum Information Science (QIS) engineers who will be adaptive and creative innovators in a globally connected, innovation-driven world with great consideration of the societal impacts of their work. For the education plan, the PI will: (1) organize a workshop each summer oriented to industry that fosters a collaborative environment between academia and industry on QIS; (2) develop a new QIS course to augment the standard curriculum with education materials derived from this quantum sensing and communication CAREER project; and (3) develop an undergraduate summer research program to engage students from diverse backgrounds into the CAREER research. The proposed quantum sensing and communication system designs will impact the NSF’s Big 10 Ideas and cut across multiple research disciplines essential to the Nation’s competitiveness and prosperity, including quantum information, machine learning, and photonics. The expected project outcomes will apply to sensing and communication tasks that include deep-space communication, radar detection, inertia force sensing, and radio-frequency signal sensing. Such outcomes will lead to innovations in the aerospace, chemical, environmental protection, finance, healthcare, and information technology industries that impact society and the US economy. By working with industrial partners like General Dynamics, Arm Ltd., and Fidelity Investments, the PI and his group will help to translate fundamental quantum research into industry technologies. For the education plan, the proposed: (1) workforce development workshops will help to prepare US industry employees and university students for the future quantum edge; and (2) hands-on research experience with the PI’s group will enable undergraduates to gain problem-solving skills and a more in-depth knowledge of QIS to inspire them to follow QIS career pathways. Graduate students will obtain direct experience of mentoring under the PI’s supervision. The proposed CAREER project will determine the ultimate quantum limits of sensing and communication tasks and develop entanglement-assisted (EA) protocols to advance real-world sensing and communication scenarios with near-term technology. The PI will propose, analyze, and verify protocol designs that can benefit from entanglement in the presence of noise for an EA quantum pulse compression radar, an EA communication network, and an EA sensor-network. The project team will combine numerical and analytical calculations in the theory and modeling of quantum systems and adopt advanced machine-learning tools for variational circuit optimization. The theory framework for analyzing different sensing and communication systems will be a solid foundation to explore EA quantum information processing in the presence of noise, and will include sensing and communication modeling, source and measurement optimization, and techniques to bound the capacity region. The proposed project will advance knowledge from both fundamental and practical angles. On a fundamental level, the research will deepen the understanding of the operational meaning of bipartite and multipartite entanglement and provide paradigms for multiple parameter estimation and distributed parameter estimation: estimating a global property of various local parameters. On the application and engineering levels, the designed protocols will guide the near-term development of quantum devices for acquiring, storing, and processing information to meet the goal of realizing entanglement benefits in practice.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.