SHOTS: Scalable Secure Authentication-Attestation Protocol Using Optimal Trajectory in UAV Swarms

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have enabled a broad spectrum of applications serving social, commercial, and military purposes. However, since UAVs use wireless communication technologies, they are highly vulnerable to security threats. Establishing trust with the base station is the most fundamental security aspect in UAV networks to mitigate these threats. However, due to a UAV’s constrained resources, deploying traditional trust establishment schemes in UAV networks becomes challenging. Further, this issue escalates as the number of UAVs increases. To address this issue, we propose an authentication cum attestation protocol for UAV swarms using an optimal communication trajectory, which can establish the required trust in a lightweight manner. Furthermore, our protocol uses Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and thus guarantees physical security as well. We demonstrate that the proposed protocol is feasible, scalable, and secure using a formal Mao Boyd logic approach. Comparative analyses show that the proposed protocol outperforms the state-of-the-art.