Blockchain-Based Mutual-Healing Group Key Distribution Scheme in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Ad-Hoc Network

• Published in: IEEE transactions on vehicular technology Vol. 68; no. 11; pp. 11309 - 11322
• Main Authors: Li, Xinghua, Wang, Yunwei, Vijayakumar, Pandi, He, Debiao, Kumar, Neeraj, Ma, Jianfeng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-11-2019; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Ad hoc networks; Blockchain; Cryptography; Ground stations; group key distribution; Healing; mutual-healing; Network topology; Real-time systems; Security; Topology; Unmanned aerial vehicles; Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Ad-Hoc Network (UAANET); Vehicle dynamics; Wireless networks
• ISSN: 0018-9545; 1939-9359
• DOI: 10.1109/TVT.2019.2943118

A dynamic group key is required for secure communication in the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Ad-Hoc Network (UAANET). However, due to the unreliable wireless channel and high-dynamic topology of UAANET, the situation that a node is missing certain group key broadcast messages occurs frequently. Existing group key distribution schemes cannot be directly applied to the UAANET, because of their poor security or real-time. Therefore, we present a mutual-healing group key distribution scheme based on the blockchain. Firstly, the Ground Control Station (GCS) builds a private blockchain where the group keys distributed by GCS are recorded. Meanwhile, through the blockchain, a dynamic list of UAANET membership certificates is also managed. According to different attack models, a basic mutual-healing protocol and an enhanced one are designed based on the Longest-Lost-Chain mechanism to recover the node's lost group keys with the aid of its neighbors. Security analysis and extensive experiments show that, compared with the existing mutual-healing schemes, our proposed solution can effectively resist various attacks with small overhead on time and storage.