Identity Management and Authentication of a UAV Swarm Based on a Blockchain

Abstract

In recent years, with the continuous development of UAV technology, the application of the UAV swarm in the military has been a global focus of research. Although it can bring a series of benefits in autonomous cooperation, the traditional UAV management technology is prone to hacker attacks due to many security issues, such as a single point of failure brought by centralized management and the lack of reliable identity authentication. This paper studies the advantages and the recent advances of the blockchain in UAV swarm, proposes a blockchain-based UAV swarm identity management model (B-UIM-M), and establishes a distributed identity authentication scheme based on the distributed identity identifier (DID) under this model. Moreover, to ensure the safe transmission of UAV communication data, a secure communication architecture based on blockchain and a set of secure transmission protocols were designed, combined with cryptography. In the current military field, there is no similar application case of the UAV swarm identity management model and distributed identity authentication. The feasibility and security of the proposed scheme are proved through experiments and security analyses.

Модель Передачі Інформації Між Безпілотними Літальними Апаратами Рою На Основі Програмованих Перколяційних Шляхів В Кубічній Решітці

“…Низька робіт [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] присвячена висвітленню проблем передачі даних у роях БПЛА, моделям та алгоритмам їх вирішення. Проте умови і способи досягнення поставлених цілей обмежуються певними правилами, що не враховують відповідної складності виконання завдання роєм БПЛА на полі бою.…”

Data Quality in Human-Centric Sensing-Based Next-Generation IoT Systems: A Comprehensive Survey of Models, Issues, and Challenges

“…Recently, blockchain has gained popularity as a distributed, transparent and robust technology that secures, verifies, and records transactions in a safe, transparent, and timely manner [119]. Blockchain offers highly secured, authenticated and trusted services in various applications such as healthcare [120], e-commerce [121], finance [122], supply chain [123], military [124], transportation [125], VANETs [114], unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) [126] and IoT [137]. The decentralized nature of blockchain technology makes it a reliable platform for replacing centralized servers in different applications.…”

Efficient Remote Identification for Drone Swarms

“…However, it does not cover the compromised drone issue, and it requires special hardware. Han et al [30] proposed a blockchain-based UAV swarm identity management model (B-UIM-M). The proposed method has advantages in UAV identity management, UAV identity authentication, scalability, and secure transmission of communication data.…”

“…These reasons make it necessary to develop a remote identification system for drones, including drone swarms. There have been numerous works on drone identification and authentication methods [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25], but only a few on authentication methods for drone swarms [26][27][28][29][30]. Also, there is still no effective method of identification for drone swarms.…”