In recent years, FANET-related research and development has doubled, due to the increased demands of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in both military and civilian operations. Equipped with more capabilities and unique characteristics, FANET is able to play a vital role in mission-critical applications. However, these distinctive features enforce a series of guidelines to be considered for its efficient deployment. Particularly, the use of FANET for on-time data communication services presents demanding challenges in terms of energy efficiency and quality of service (QoS). Proper use of communication architecture and wireless technology will assist to solve these challenges. Therefore, in this paper, we review different communication architectures, including the existing wireless technologies, in order to provide seamless wireless connectivity. Based on the discussions, we conclude that a multi-layer UAV ad-hoc network is the most suitable architecture for networking a group of heterogeneous UAVs, while Bluetooth 5 (802.15.1) is the most favored option because of its low-cost, low power consumption, and longer transmission range for FANET. However, 802.15.1 has the limitation of a lower data rate as compared to Wi-Fi (802.11). Therefore, we propose a hybrid wireless communication scheme so as to utilize the features of the high data transmission rate of 802.11 and the low-power consumption of 802.15.1. The proposed scheme significantly reduces communication cost and improves the network performance in terms of throughput and delay. Further, simulation results using the Optimized Network Engineering Tool (OPNET) further support the effectiveness of our proposed scheme.

The evolution of Flying Ad-hoc Networks (FANETs) marks the paradigm shift from a single large drone to multiple small drones linked together in an ad-hoc fashion. To maintain the Quality of Service (QoS) in the multi-hop networking schema, FANETs utilize the available resources efficiently. However, due to the open wireless boundary and high mobility of the drones, FANETs are vulnerable to malicious nodes that can penetrate the network and, thus, pose serious security threats, particularly at the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer. This vulnerability could adversely affect the network security and privacy, resulting in colossal damages to the information exchange operations within the network. An attacker intending to damage the network has multiple options to carry on the malicious aims. For instance, the attacker can transmit plenty of reservation requests, eavesdrop the control messages and/or forge the information. The network, as a result, enervates and, for survival, calls for a mechanism that aggregates secure access control and key agreement. We contribute to the sum of knowledge by harnessing the technique of Hyperelliptic Curve Cryptography (HECC) to present a certificate-based access control and key agreement scheme. To assess the viability and performance of the proposed scheme, we analyze it using formal security analysis techniques, such as the Real-Or-Random (ROR) model and Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) tool. The scheme is also evaluated using the informal security analysis technique, or the non-mathematical approach. The results obtained from both the analyses affirm the superiority of our proposed scheme.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), when interconnected in a multi-hop ad-hoc fashion, or as a flying ad-hoc network (FANET), can efficiently accomplish mission-critical tasks. However, UAVs usually suffer from the issues of shorter lifespan and limited computational resources. Therefore, the existing security approaches, being fragile, are not capable of countering the attacks, whether known or unknown. Such a security lapse can result in a debilitated FANET system. In order to cope up with such attacks, various efficient signature schemes have been proposed. Unfortunately, none of the solutions work effectively because of incurred computational and communication costs. We aimed to resolve such issues by proposing a blind signature scheme in a certificateless setting. The scheme does not require public-key certificates, nor does it suffer from the key escrow problem. Moreover, the data that are aggregated from the platform that monitors the UAVs might be too huge to be processed by the same UAVs engaged in the monitoring task. Due to being latency-sensitive, it demands high computational capability. Luckily, the envisioned fifth generation (5G) mobile communication introduces multi-access edge computing (MEC) in its architecture. MEC, when incorporated in a UAV environment, in our proposed model, divides the workload between UAVs and the on-board microcomputer. Thus, our proposed model extends FANET to the 5G mobile network and enables a secure communication between UAVs and the base station (BS).

Providing a seamless wireless connectivity anywhere and anytime to enable smart services for various applications has become an important challenge for FANET. These applications typically demand high throughput that generally exceeds the capability of low-power radios such as IEEE 802.15.4. Therefore, this study aims to address the issue by proposing a dual-radio dualband scheme that utilizes low-power (IEEE 802.15.4) and high- bandwidth (IEEE 802.11) radios, supposedly operating on dual- band(s) i.e. 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. The design goal is to improve performance of the network in terms of throughput and end-to- end delay. The study uses OPNET platform to model the proposed solution.