Quantum Encrypted Control of Networked Systems

Quantum Physics arXiv:2512.03434 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 3 Dec 2025] Title:Quantum Encrypted Control of Networked Systems Authors:Zihao Ren, Daniel Quevedo, Salah Sukkarieh, Guodong Shi View a PDF of the paper titled Quantum Encrypted Control of Networked Systems, by Zihao Ren and 3 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Encrypted control has been extensively studied to ensure the confidentiality of system states and control inputs for networked control systems. This paper presents a computationally efficient encrypted control framework for networked systems enabled by quantum communication. A quantum channel between sensors and actuators is used to generate identical secret keys, whose security is further enhanced through quantum key distribution. These keys enable lightweight encryption and decryption while preserving confidentiality and control accuracy. We develop a novel encryption-decryption architecture for state-feedback control of linear systems based on quantum keys, and characterize the impact of quantum state errors on closed-loop stability. In particular, we establish the existence of a critical threshold on intrinsic quantum noise below which stability is guaranteed. In contrast to classical encrypted control schemes, which may collapse under a single key-bit error, the proposed quantum encrypted control exhibits strong robustness to key imperfections. We further adopt quantization techniques to address the scenarios with limited communication bits in practical situations, and implement privacy protection for quantum keys based on a stochastic quantizer. These results demonstrate that integrating quantum technologies into control systems in a nontrivial and principled manner, even at their current level of maturity, can yield substantial performance gains in reducing computational complexity and improving resilience to key errors while ensuring security against multiple eavesdropping sources. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Systems and Control (eess.SY) Cite as: arXiv:2512.03434 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2512.03434v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2512.03434 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Zihao Ren [view email] [v1] Wed, 3 Dec 2025 04:27:39 UTC (393 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Quantum Encrypted Control of Networked Systems, by Zihao Ren and 3 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2025-12 Change to browse by: cs cs.SY eess eess.SY References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)