Subnoise optical covert communication based on amplified spontaneous emission light

Abstract

Amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) light is a common noise in optical communication systems with optical amplification, and a suitable optical carrier for optical covert communication. To deeply covert the secure signal, an in-band subnoise optical covert communication scheme is proposed and demonstrated by a proof-of-concept experiment. The power spectral density of optical secure channel is 10 dB less than the optical noise in the public channel. The covert signal is hidden in both optical and electrical domain, and can be transmitted with error-free. The trade-off between covertness and availability is discussed.