DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF SECURE COMMUNICATION IN IOT-BASED UAV NETWORKS

Abstract

IoT (Internet of Things) has revolutionised the world with applications like home automation, transportation, agriculture, etc. IoT-based Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) networks are an emerging field that introduces the UAV network with the power of the Internet. IoT-based UAV networks are networks of External Users (EU) and interconnected UAVs equipped with sensors, flight controllers, and other components to exchange col- lected data with each other via GCS (Ground Control Station) over the Internet. IoT- based UAV network system is used for surveillance, monitoring, and payload delivery in smart city environments, which generate a plethora of sensitive information, such as traffic situations on the road and high-definition images of properties and survivors dur- ing natural calamities, which can be obtained by adversaries in the middle for there bad intentions. Communication between the External EU, UAVs, and GCS is vulnerable to security threats, such as eavesdropping replay attacks and location and physical capture attacks. The message between these entities is not enciphered, which makes them error-prone. Moreover, UAVs are resource-constrained devices with limited storage and computational capabilities to complete the assigned mission and task. Therefore, robust and lightweight authentication schemes are required for secure data transmission in IoT-based UAV net- works. Thus, we aim to identify modern cryptographic techniques with provable security based on mathematics to overcome the current security challenges in IoT-based UAV networks. To achieve the abovementioned framework, we have examined peer-reviewed literature that discusses previous six-year established papers with existing attacks, such as physi- cal and logical attacks with suggested solutions such as trajectory planning, lightweight schemes, solutions based on blockchain, quantum cryptography, etc. This survey analyses the secure communication network between UAVs by systematically answering research v questions based on the research methodology for the relevant study. Finally, the survey addresses several issues and guidelines for future research. One of the modern cryptography techniques, such as Hyperelliptic Curve Cryptog- raphy (HCC) utilising Genus-2 curve and Fuzzy Extractor (FE)-based cryptosystem, is proposed to protect sensitive information during communication in IoT-based UAV net- works. The scheme is designed with lightweight operations such as XOR, hash functions, random nonces, and timestamps. HCCs maximum key size is 80 bits, differing from the 160-bit requirement of the elliptic curve, making it apt for UAVs with limited re- sources. The proposed scheme utilises biometrics traits of users to avoid exposing data from stealing smart devices using FE. This protocol facilitates the mutual authentication of users and UAVs, allowing them to exchange a session key for secure communication. The Hyperelliptic Curve (HC) scalar multiplication protects the users private key from at- tackers, even in public channels. The obfuscation identity of the user and UAVs generated through the hash function and timestamp makes the external user and UAV anonymous. The efficacy of this proposed framework is examined using the Scyther verification tool and Random oracle model-based formal analysis, and informal analysis is also discussed, which validates its robustness against well-known potential physical and logical attacks. The performance analysis shows that the HC-based scheme has lower computation, com- munication, and storage costs than existing schemes.