Biblio

Grid modernization efforts with the latest information and communication technologies will significantly benefit smart grids in the coming years. More optical fibre communications between consumers and the control center will promise better demand response and customer engagement, yet the increasing attack surface and man-in-the-middle (MITM) threats can result in security and privacy challenges. Among the studies for more secure smart grid communications, quantum key distribution protocols (QKD) have emerged as a promising option. To bridge the theoretical advantages of quantum communication to its practical utilization, however, comprehensive investigations have to be conducted with realistic cyber-physical smart grid structures and scenarios. To facilitate research in this direction, this paper proposes an open-source, research-oriented co-simulation platform that orchestrates cyber and power simulators under the MOSAIK framework. The proposed platform allows flexible and realistic power flow-based co-simulation of quantum communications and electrical grids, where different cyber and power topologies, QKD protocols, and attack threats can be investigated. Using quantum-based communication under MITM attacks, the paper presented detailed case studies to demonstrate how the platform enables quick setup of a lowvoltage distribution grid, implementation of different protocols and cryptosystems, as well as evaluations of both communication efficiency and security against MITM attacks. The platform has been made available online to empower researchers in the modelling of quantum-based cyber-physical systems, pilot studies on quantum communications in smart grid, as well as improved attack resilience against malicious intruders.

We demonstrate secure fiber-optic transmission utilizing quantum-noise signal masking by 217-level random phase modulation. Masking of 157 signal phase levels at a BER of HD-FEC threshold is achieved without significant impacts on the transmission performance.

In multicarrier direct modulation direct detection systems, interaction between laser chirp and fiber group velocity dispersion induces subcarrier-to-subcarrier intermixing interferences (SSII) after detection. Such SSII become a major impairment in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-based access systems, where a high modulation index, leading to large chirp, is required to maximize the system power budget. In this letter, we present and experimentally verify an analytical formulation to predict the level of signal and SSII and estimate the signal to noise ratio of each subcarrier, enabling improved bit-and-power loading and subcarrier attribution. The reported model is compact, and only requires the knowledge of basic link characteristics and laser parameters that can easily be measured.