Blockchain-Enabled Trustworthy Group Communications in UAV Networks

• Published in: IEEE transactions on intelligent transportation systems Vol. 22; no. 7; pp. 4118 - 4130
• Main Authors: Gai, Keke, Wu, Yulu, Zhu, Liehuang, Choo, Kim-Kwang Raymond, Xiao, Bin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.07.2021; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Authentication; Base stations; Blockchain; Cryptography; Data transfer; Group communication; Servers; Trustworthiness; trustworthy group communication; unmanned aerial vehicle network; Unmanned aerial vehicles; Wireless communication; Wireless communications
• ISSN: 1524-9050; 1558-0016
• DOI: 10.1109/TITS.2020.3015862

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly deployed in networked environments, such as places of mass gatherings, smart cities and smart nations. For example, UAVs can be deployed to detect violations of lockdown, stay-at-home or social / physical distancing directives during pandemics (e.g. COVID-19). There are, however, security and privacy considerations in such deployments. To achieve secure and efficient authentication of UAVs, solutions such as those based on Point-to-Point (P2P) or a Point- to-Multipoint (P2M) communications have been proposed in the literature. In this article, we present a novel blockchain-based technique to support multi-party authentication to facilitate trustworthy group communications. Specifically, this allows us to provide secure P2P wireless communications and trusted group communication management for UAV networks, while ensuring service efficiency. Evaluation findings from both real-world implementation and simulations demonstrate the utility of the proposed approach.