Remarkable progress has been made in satellite-based quantum key distribution (QKD), which can effectively provide QKD service even at the intercontinental scale and construct an ultralong-distance global quantum network. But there are still some places where terrestrial fiber and ground stations cannot be constructed, like harsh mountainous areas and air space above the sea. So the airborne platform is expected to replace the ground station and provide flexible and relay links for the large-scale integrated communication network. However, the photon transmission rate would be randomly reduced, owing to the randomly distributed boundary layer that surrounds the surface of the aircraft when the flight speed is larger than 0.3 Ma. Previous research of airborne QKD with boundary layer effects is mainly under the air-to-ground scenario in which the aircraft is a transmitter, while the satellite-to-aircraft scenario is rarely reported. In this article, we propose a performance evaluation scheme of satellite-to-aircraft QKD with boundary layer effects in which the aircraft is the receiver. With common experimental settings, the boundary layer would introduce a ∼31dB loss to the transmitted photons, decrease ∼47% of the quantum communication time, and decrease ∼51% of the secure key rate, which shows that the aero-optical effects caused by the boundary layer cannot be ignored. Our study can be performed in future airborne quantum communication designs.

The infrared imaging windows of the hyper/supersonic optical dome are encountering severe aero-optical effects (AOEs), so a flow control device, the ramp vortex generator array (RVGA) is proposed based on the ramp vortex generator to inhibit the supersonic mixing layers’ AOE, which is done by the nanotracer-based planar laser scattering technique and ray-tracing method. The experiments prove that under different pressure conditions, RVGA can reduce the mean and standard deviation of the root mean square of the optical path difference (OPDrms) and reduce the supersonic mixing layers’ thickness and mixture a great deal. The AOE of the pressure-matched mixing layer is the weakest. Higher RVGA results in better optical performance. RVGA has the potential to be applied to supersonic film cooling to reduce aero-optical aberrations.

随着更高的需求和科技发展推动航空飞行器工作速度的提高，航空光学成像的机动、灵活等特点显现更加突出，但实现高质量、高分辨率成像的技术难度也极具挑战性。飞行器与高速气流之间的复杂作用产生气动光学效应，光波或光束经过复杂流场与光学窗口时受到强干扰，为此吸引了众多科学家开展多学科交叉融合的相关研究工作，取得了大量的研究成果，为试验测试和工程实践提供了有力支撑。文中从气动光学流场与光学窗口两方面的计算研究入手，详细综述了气动光学传输效应的研究进展，归纳总结了相应的计算方法，综合当前技术发展趋势给出航空光学成像气动光学传输效应计算研究的思考和建议。