Performance Analysis of High-Dimensional Orbital Angular Momentum Entanglement Distribution on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Platforms

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) emerge as a flexible and cost-effective solution for mobile quantum communication, showing significant potential. Despite the challenges posed by environmental noise in free-space channels for efficient entanglement distribution, the noise-resistant properties of high-dimensional (HD) quantum states provide a promising solution to these issues. This work establishes a HD orbital angular momentum (OAM) entanglement distribution model on a UAV platform, systematically analyzing the effects of environmental conditions and platform parameters. Based on this model, a HD subspace coding protocol is investigated, with optimized subspace dimension and mode sets to enhance the performance. Furthermore, the use of the source modulation technique can significantly improve the key rate and transmission distance of the system. This work holds important implications for expanding UAV platform coverage, improving adaptability to environmental factors, and advancing the development of heterogeneous quantum networks.