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Security, Privacy and Reliability of Drone Communications for beyond 5G Networks

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A special issue of Drones (ISSN 2504-446X). This special issue belongs to the section "Drone Communications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2022) | Viewed by 69063

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Mohammed H. Alsharif

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Guest Editor

College of Electronics and Information Engineering, Sejong University, Seoul 05006, Republic of Korea
Interests: wireless communications; network information theory; internet of things; green communication; sustainable cellular networks
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Muhammad Asghar Khan

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Co-Guest Editor

Hamdard Institute of Engineering & Technology, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
Interests: IoT; 5G; blockchain; machine learning; UAVs; wireless communication
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, have earned significant recognition in providing ubiquitous wireless connectivity to a variety of applications, including surveillance, agriculture, healthcare, traffic control, inspections, and public safety. The communication process of traditional drone communication networks is typically carried out by short-range wireless networking technologies such as Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11), ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4), Bluetooth (IEEE 802.15.1), and others. It operates over an unlicensed spectrum (e.g., ISM 2.4 GHz), which has the characteristics of a low data rate, inefficient bandwidth, tendency toward security lapses, and a very limited operating range. To address these limitations, traditional cellular networks can be used to connect drones. They offer better data communication services in circumstances where the transmission range is wide and short-distance wireless systems are not capable of meeting high throughput requirements. Moreover, recent advances in 5G have made it possible to conceptualize cellular networks beyond 5G (B5G) and sixth-generation (6G), capable of unleashing the full potential of abundant, past-including autonomous services as well as emerging trends.

This Special Issue aims to suggest solutions to challenging issues such as privacy leakage, data confidentiality, and flexible accessibility over 5G and beyond wireless networks. Researchers around the world are encouraged to propose cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML), quantum machine learning (QML), blockchain, terahertz (THz) communication, fog/edge computing, visible light communication (VLC), and so on, for drone communication networks.

Potential topics include but are not limited to:

Security and privacy issues of drone communication networks;
Integrating drones into 5G and beyond;
Real-time video broadcasting from the drone to 5G networks;
D2D and cognitive communications;
Energy-efficient drone communications in 5G and beyond;
Blockchain-based security protocols for 5G-enabled drone communication;
Novel frameworks and algorithms based on existing and upcoming technologies to enhance the scalability and security of 5G-enabled drone communication;
Cloud, fog, and edge computing architecture for drone-assisted communication networks;
SDN and NFV for drone communications;
Machine learning algorithms for drone-assisted communication networks;
Reinforcement-learning based intelligent applications in drone communication.

Dr. Mohammed H. Alsharif
Dr. Muhammad Asghar Khan
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Drones is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Security
Privacy
Blockchain
Cognitive communications
5G, B5G, 6G
UAVs
Drones
SDN
Machine learning
Energy efficiency

Published Papers (11 papers)

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Research

Jump to: Review

18 pages, 4470 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Ant Colony Optimization ACO Based Autonomous Secure Routing Protocol for Mobile Surveillance Systems

by Kashif Saleem and Iftikhar Ahmad

Drones 2022, 6(11), 351; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones6110351 - 14 Nov 2022

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1755

Abstract

Sensing plays a vital role in enabling smart cities. The mobile surveillance of different sectors, the retransmission of radio signals, and package delivery are the main applications conducted by unmanned vehicles in smart cities. Multiple unmanned vehicles or miniaturized real-time flying machines with onboard sensors, whether land- or air-based, communicate with each other to form a flying sensor network. Almost all of these machines are battery-operated. Therefore, power preservation is an extremely important factor to be taken into consideration. This paper proposes a power-aware biologically inspired secure autonomous routing protocol (P-BIOSARP) that depends on enhanced ant colony optimization (eACO). eACO autonomously and securely routes the data packet, and the power awareness maintains the power consumption of the flying sensor network. The novel intelligent power-aware routing protocol was implemented in network simulator 2 to perform a number of experiments with different scenarios. The scenarios included varying numbers of total nodes and mobile nodes, different packet rates, mobile source nodes, multiple mobile routing nodes, and, on the side of security, the injection of malicious nodes. The proposed protocol is compared with BIOSARP, E-BIOSARP, and SRTLD in terms of energy consumption, the delivery ratio, and traffic overhead. The analysis shows that the P-BIOSARP remarkably reduces energy consumption compared to other well-known protocols implemented on real testbeds. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security, Privacy and Reliability of Drone Communications for beyond 5G Networks)

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18 pages, 5761 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Crystal Structure Optimization with Deep-Autoencoder-Based Intrusion Detection for Secure Internet of Drones Environment

by Khalid A. Alissa, Saud S. Alotaibi, Fatma S. Alrayes, Mohammed Aljebreen, Sana Alazwari, Hussain Alshahrani, Mohamed Ahmed Elfaki, Mahmoud Othman and Abdelwahed Motwakel

Drones 2022, 6(10), 297; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones6100297 - 10 Oct 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1590

Abstract

Drone developments, especially small-sized drones, usher in novel trends and possibilities in various domains. Drones offer navigational inter-location services with the involvement of the Internet of Things (IoT). On the other hand, drone networks are highly prone to privacy and security risks owing to their strategy flaws. In order to achieve the desired efficiency, it is essential to create a secure network. The purpose of the current study is to have an overview of the privacy and security problems that recently impacted the Internet of Drones (IoD). An Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is an effective approach to determine the presence of intrusions in the IoD environment. The current study focuses on the design of Crystal Structure Optimization with Deep-Autoencoder-based Intrusion Detection (CSODAE-ID) for a secure IoD environment. The aim of the presented CSODAE-ID model is to identify the occurrences of intrusions in IoD environment. In the proposed CSODAE-ID model, a new Modified Deer Hunting Optimization-based Feature Selection (MDHO-FS) technique is applied to choose the feature subsets. At the same time, the Autoencoder (AE) method is employed for the classification of intrusions in the IoD environment. The CSO algorithm, inspired by the formation of crystal structures based on the lattice points, is employed at last for the hyperparameter-tuning process. To validate the enhanced performance of the proposed CSODAE-ID model, multiple simulation analyses were performed and the outcomes were assessed under distinct aspects. The comparative study outcomes demonstrate the superiority of the proposed CSODAE-ID model over the existing techniques. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security, Privacy and Reliability of Drone Communications for beyond 5G Networks)

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25 pages, 772 KiB

Open AccessArticle

LAP-BFT: Lightweight Asynchronous Provable Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Consensus Mechanism for UAV Network

by Lingjun Kong, Bing Chen and Feng Hu

Drones 2022, 6(8), 187; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones6080187 - 25 Jul 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2502

Abstract

Mission-oriented UAV networks operate in nonsecure, complex environments with time-varying network partitioning and node trustworthiness. UAV networks are thus essentially asynchronous distributed systems with the Byzantine General problem, whose availability depends on the tolerance of progressively more erroneous nodes in the course of a mission. To address the resource-limited nature of UAV networks, this paper proposes a lightweight asynchronous provable Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus method. The consensus method reduces the communication overhead by splitting the set of local trusted state transactions and then dispersing the reliable broadcast control transmission (DRBC), introduces vector commitments to achieve multivalue Byzantine consensus (PMVBA) for identity and data in a provable manner and reduces the computational complexity, and the data stored on the chain is only the consensus result (global trustworthiness information of the drone nodes), avoiding the blockchain’s “storage inflation” problem. This makes the consensus process lighter in terms of bandwidth, computation and storage, ensuring the longevity and overall performance of the UAV network during the mission. Through QualNet simulation platform, existing practical asynchronous consensus algorithms are compared, and the proposed method performs better in terms of throughput, consensus latency and energy consumption rate. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security, Privacy and Reliability of Drone Communications for beyond 5G Networks)

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15 pages, 659 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Prioritized User Association for Sum-Rate Maximization in UAV-Assisted Emergency Communication: A Reinforcement Learning Approach

by Abdul Basit Siddiqui, Iraj Aqeel, Ahmed Alkhayyat, Umer Javed and Zeeshan Kaleem

Drones 2022, 6(2), 45; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones6020045 - 15 Feb 2022

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3433

Abstract

Unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) used as aerial base stations (ABSs) can provide communication services in areas where cellular network is not functional due to a calamity. ABSs provide high coverage and high data rates to the user because of the advantage of a high altitude. ABSs can be static or mobile; they can adjust their position according to real-time location of ground user and maintain a good line-of-sight link with ground users. In this paper, a reinforcement learning framework is proposed to maximize the number of served users by optimizing the ABS 3D location and power. We also design a reward function that prioritize the emergency users to establish a connection with the ABS using Q-learning. Simulation results reveal that the proposed scheme clearly outperforms the baseline schemes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security, Privacy and Reliability of Drone Communications for beyond 5G Networks)

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19 pages, 2481 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Anonymous Mutual and Batch Authentication with Location Privacy of UAV in FANET

by Arun Sekar Rajasekaran, Azees Maria, Fadi Al-Turjman, Chadi Altrjman and Leonardo Mostarda

Drones 2022, 6(1), 14; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones6010014 - 07 Jan 2022

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 2886

Abstract

As there has been an advancement in avionic systems in recent years, the enactment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) has upgraded. As compared to a single UAV system, multiple UAV systems can perform operations more inexpensively and efficiently. As a result, new technologies between user/control station and UAVs have been developed. FANET (Flying Ad-Hoc Network) is a subset of the MANET (Mobile Ad-Hoc Network) that includes UAVs. UAVs, simply called drones, are used for collecting sensitive data in real time. The security and privacy of these data are of priority importance. Therefore, to overcome the privacy and security threats problem and to make communication between the UAV and the user effective, a competent anonymous mutual authentication scheme is proposed in this work. There are several methodologies addressed in this work such as anonymous batch authentication in FANET which helps to authenticate a large group of drones at the same time, thus reducing the computational overhead. In addition, the integrity preservation technique helps to avoid message alteration during transmission. Moreover, the security investigation section discusses the resistance of the proposed work against different types of possible attacks. Finally, the proposed work is related to the prevailing schemes in terms of communication and computational cost and proves to be more efficient. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security, Privacy and Reliability of Drone Communications for beyond 5G Networks)

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19 pages, 723 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Amassing the Security: An Enhanced Authentication Protocol for Drone Communications over 5G Networks

by Tsuyang Wu, Xinglan Guo, Yehcheng Chen, Saru Kumari and Chienming Chen

Drones 2022, 6(1), 10; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones6010010 - 31 Dec 2021

Cited by 39 | Viewed by 4152

Abstract

At present, the great progress made by the Internet of Things (

I o T

) has led to the emergence of the Internet of Drones (

I o D

I o D

is an extension of the

I o T

, [...] Read more.

At present, the great progress made by the Internet of Things (

I o T

) has led to the emergence of the Internet of Drones (

I o D

I o D

is an extension of the

I o T

, which is used to control and manipulate drones entering the flight area. Now, the fifth-generation mobile communication technology (

5 G

) has been introduced into the

I o D

; it can transmit ultra-high-definition data, make the drones respond to ground commands faster and provide more secure data transmission in the

I o D

. However, because the drones communicate on the public channel, they are vulnerable to security attacks; furthermore, drones can be easily captured by attackers. Therefore, to solve the security problem of the

I o D

, Hussain et al. recently proposed a three-party authentication protocol in an

I o D

environment. The protocol is applied to the supervision of smart cities and collects real-time data about the smart city through drones. However, we find that the protocol is vulnerable to drone capture attacks, privileged insider attacks and session key disclosure attacks. Based on the security of the above protocol, we designed an improved protocol. Through informal analysis, we proved that the protocol could resist known security attacks. In addition, we used the real-oracle random model and ProVerif tool to prove the security and effectiveness of the protocol. Finally, through comparison, we conclude that the protocol is secure compared with recent protocols. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security, Privacy and Reliability of Drone Communications for beyond 5G Networks)

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Review

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27 pages, 6045 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceReview

Towards the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): A Comprehensive Review

by Syed Agha Hassnain Mohsan, Muhammad Asghar Khan, Fazal Noor, Insaf Ullah and Mohammed H. Alsharif

Drones 2022, 6(6), 147; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones6060147 - 15 Jun 2022

Cited by 183 | Viewed by 28216

Abstract

Recently, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, have come in a great diversity of several applications such as military, construction, image and video mapping, medical, search and rescue, parcel delivery, hidden area exploration, oil rigs and power line monitoring, precision farming, wireless communication and aerial surveillance. The drone industry has been getting significant attention as a model of manufacturing, service and delivery convergence, introducing synergy with the coexistence of different emerging domains. UAVs offer implicit peculiarities such as increased airborne time and payload capabilities, swift mobility, and access to remote and disaster areas. Despite these potential features, including extensive variety of usage, high maneuverability, and cost-efficiency, drones are still limited in terms of battery endurance, flight autonomy and constrained flight time to perform persistent missions. Other critical concerns are battery endurance and the weight of drones, which must be kept low. Intuitively it is not suggested to load them with heavy batteries. This study highlights the importance of drones, goals and functionality problems. In this review, a comprehensive study on UAVs, swarms, types, classification, charging, and standardization is presented. In particular, UAV applications, challenges, and security issues are explored in the light of recent research studies and development. Finally, this review identifies the research gap and presents future research directions regarding UAVs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security, Privacy and Reliability of Drone Communications for beyond 5G Networks)

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24 pages, 2036 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceReview

Non-Terrestrial Networks-Enabled Internet of Things: UAV-Centric Architectures, Applications, and Open Issues

by Jun Li, Rahim Kacimi, Tianyi Liu, Xiaoyan Ma and Riadh Dhaou

Drones 2022, 6(4), 95; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones6040095 - 10 Apr 2022

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3093

Abstract

Although Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)-aided wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have gained many applications, it is not for long that research works have been produced to define effective algorithms and protocols. In this article, we address the UAV-enabled WSN (U-WSN), explore the performance and the capability of the UAV, define the UAV functionalities as a communication node, and describe the architectures and the relevant typical technologies that emerge from this new paradigm. Furthermore, this article also identifies the main factors which influence the U-WSN design and analyzes the open issues and challenges in U-WSN. These insights may serve as motivations and guidelines for future designs of UAV-enabled WSNs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security, Privacy and Reliability of Drone Communications for beyond 5G Networks)

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20 pages, 18771 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceReview

UAS Traffic Management Communications: The Legacy of ADS-B, New Establishment of Remote ID, or Leverage of ADS-B-Like Systems?

by Neno Ruseno, Chung-Yan Lin and Shih-Cheng Chang

Drones 2022, 6(3), 57; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones6030057 - 23 Feb 2022

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 5212

Abstract

Unmanned aerial system (UAS) traffic management (UTM) requires each UAS to communicate with each other and to other stakeholders involved in the operation. In practice, there are two types of wireless communication systems established in the UAS community: automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) and remote identification (Remote ID). In between these two systems, there is ADS-B-like communication which leverages using other types of communications available in the market for the purpose of UTM. This review aims to provide an insight into those three systems, based on the published standard documents and latest research development. It also suggests how to construct a feasible communication architecture. The integrative approach is used in this literature review. The review categorization includes definition, data format, technology used, and research applications, and any remaining issues are discussed. The similarities and differences of each system are elaborated, covering practical findings. In addition, the SWOT analysis is conducted based on the findings. Lastly, multi-channel communication for UTM is proposed as a feasible solution in the UTM operation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security, Privacy and Reliability of Drone Communications for beyond 5G Networks)

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26 pages, 2429 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceReview

A Review on Software-Based and Hardware-Based Authentication Mechanisms for the Internet of Drones

by Emmanouel T. Michailidis and Demosthenes Vouyioukas

Drones 2022, 6(2), 41; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones6020041 - 08 Feb 2022

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 6161

Abstract

During the last few years, a wide variety of Internet of Drones (IoD) applications have emerged with numerous heterogeneous aerial and ground network elements interconnected and equipped with advanced sensors, computation resources, and communication units. The evolution of IoD networks presupposes the mitigation of several security and privacy threats. Thus, robust authentication protocols should be implemented in order to attain secure operation within the IoD. However, owing to the inherent features of the IoD and the limitations of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in terms of energy, computational, and memory resources, designing efficient and lightweight authentication solutions is a non-trivial and complicated process. Recently, the development of authentication mechanisms for the IoD has received unprecedented attention. In this paper, up-to-date research studies on authentication mechanisms for IoD networks are presented. To this end, the adoption of conventional technologies and methods, such as the widely used hash functions, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), and Elliptic-Curve Cryptography (ECC), is discussed along with emerging technologies, including Mobile Edge Computing (MEC), Machine Learning (ML), and Blockchain. Additionally, this paper provides a review of effective hardware-based solutions for the identification and authentication of network nodes within the IoD that are based on Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs), Hardware Security Modules (HSMs), and Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs). Finally, future directions in these relevant research topics are given, stimulating further work. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security, Privacy and Reliability of Drone Communications for beyond 5G Networks)

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28 pages, 6360 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperEditor’s ChoiceReview

Topology-Based Routing Protocols and Mobility Models for Flying Ad Hoc Networks: A Contemporary Review and Future Research Directions

by Ali H. Wheeb, Rosdiadee Nordin, Asma’ Abu Samah, Mohammed H. Alsharif and Muhammad Asghar Khan

Drones 2022, 6(1), 9; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones6010009 - 31 Dec 2021

Cited by 44 | Viewed by 6876

Abstract

Telecommunications among unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have emerged recently due to rapid improvements in wireless technology, low-cost equipment, advancement in networking communication techniques, and demand from various industries that seek to leverage aerial data to improve their business and operations. As such, UAVs have started to become extremely prevalent for a variety of civilian, commercial, and military uses over the past few years. UAVs form a flying ad hoc network (FANET) as they communicate and collaborate wirelessly. FANETs may be utilized to quickly complete complex operations. FANETs are frequently deployed in three dimensions, with a mobility model determined by the work they are to do, and hence differ between vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) and mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) in terms of features and attributes. Furthermore, different flight constraints and the high dynamic topology of FANETs make the design of routing protocols difficult. This paper presents a comprehensive review covering the UAV network, the several communication links, the routing protocols, the mobility models, the important research issues, and simulation software dedicated to FANETs. A topology-based routing protocol specialized to FANETs is discussed in-depth, with detailed categorization, descriptions, and qualitatively compared analyses. In addition, the paper demonstrates open research topics and future challenge issues that need to be resolved by the researchers, before UAVs communications are expected to become a reality and practical in the industry. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Security, Privacy and Reliability of Drone Communications for beyond 5G Networks)

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