Security in UAV/Drone communications

Abstract

This chapter highlights the latest advances and state-of-the-art research attempts performed towards applying physical layer security (PLS) to unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication systems. It discusses some of the additional common attacks in UAV systems. The chapter proposes recommendations and future research directions. It also highlights the latest advances and state-of-the-art researches in the field of applying PLS to UAV systems under different use cases and scenarios such as utilizing the UAV as a base station, relay, user equipment, and/or jammer. Among the aforementioned security requirements for UAV communications, preserving data confidentiality, i.e., providing security against eavesdropping by allowing data access to only authorized/legitimate users, while forbidding unauthorized/unintended users from intercepting the information, comes at the highest priority. In the context of drone communications, providing confidentiality for legitimate receivers against unintended ones appears to be a challenging goal to achieve due to the unique transmission characteristics and nature of UAV systems, including broadcasting, dominant line of site, and poor scattering.