A cross-layer PUF-secured energy and congestion-aware on-demand routing for multi-UAV networks

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have revolutionized various fields, including environmental monitoring, disaster response, military operations, and commercial deliveries. Their ability to communicate in a multi-hop fashion is crucial for data transmission. However, the inherent vulnerability of wireless communication exposes UAV networks to a range of threats, such as eavesdropping, denial-of-service and impersonation attacks. In defense missions, UAVs are also susceptible to physical capture, and malicious nodes can infiltrate the network to disrupt data transmission. As the network expands, these challenges become even more pronounced. To safeguard the integrity and reliability of communication networks, it is imperative to incorporate security measures in routing. While numerous routing protocols have been proposed in literature, very few address security alongside energy and congestion demands, often hindered by excessive computational complexity or are vulnerable to multiple other forms of attacks. This study proposes a cross-layer energy and congestionaware PUF-based on-demand routing protocol to secure UAV networks. By facilitating cross-layer interaction, the packets are signed and hashed, thereby enhancing overall network security and reliability. Network performance is evaluated using the ns-3 simulator focusing on parameters such as routing overhead, packet delivery rate, throughput, and end-to-end delay in both normal and malicious environments. A theoretical evaluation on security aspects offered by the proposed scheme is also discussed in the paper. Results demonstrate that the PUF-based security scheme achieves higher packet delivery and throughput, even in environments with significant path loss, compared to state-of-the-art schemes.