Opportunities for Physical Layer Security in UAV Communication Enhanced with Intelligent Reflective Surfaces

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are an important component of next-generation wireless networks that can assist in high data rate communications and provide enhanced coverage.Their high mobility and aerial nature offer deployment flexibility and low-cost infrastructure support to existing cellular networks and provide many applications that rely on mobile wireless communications. However, security is a major challenge in UAV communications, and Physical Layer Security (PLS) is an important technique to improve the reliability and security of data shared with the assistance of UAVs. Recently, Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces (IRS) have emerged as a novel technology to extend and/or enhance wireless coverage by re-configuring the propagation environment of communications. This paper provides an overview of how IRS can improve the PLS of UAV networks. We discuss different use cases of PLS for IRS enhanced UAV communications and briefly review the recent advances in this area. Then based on the recent advances, we also present a case study that utilizes alternate optimization to maximize the secrecy capacity for IRS enhanced UAV scenario in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers. Finally, we highlight several open issues and research challenges to realize PLS in IRS enhanced UAV communications.

Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces Assisted UAV Communications for Massive Networks: Current Trends, Challenges, and Research Directions

“…PLS can significantly support the received information at the legitimate users than eavesdroppers. Effective PLS can be achieved through various methods such as power allocation, jamming, coding, and signal processing techniques [ 96 ]. PLS can effectively support defense, authentication, and key generation against eavesdropping.…”

“…Apart from security, IRS-assisted UAV can support reliable and energy efficient communication, which ultimately enhances the battery endurance of UAVs. In a recent study [ 96 ], the authors validated the impacts on secrecy capacity by increasing both transmit power at the UAV and the number of reflecting elements at the IRS. Figure 13 a shows that by increasing the available transmission power at the UAV, the secrecy capacity also increases.…”

“…Researchers can exploit the benefits empowered by IRS-assisted UAVs to improve the security of deployed UAVs. In IRS-assisted UAVs, mobility and high flexibility are important factors to restrict potential eavesdroppers, protect data leakage of legitimate users and improve PLS [ 96 ]. Particularly, it is critically important to secure the sensitive data of legitimate UAV which can be intercepted by a malicious UAV.…”

Integration of NOMA with Reflecting Intelligent Surfaces: A Multi-cell Optimization with SIC Decoding Errors

“…According to its working principle, RIS modifies the amplitude and phase of the reflective signal. By using this amazing feature, RIS can significantly enhance the performance of wireless communication in terms of coverage extension, user fairness, and channel secrecy [4]. On the other hand, NOMA has proved to be one of the key air interface techniques for high spectral efficiency and massive connectivity in next-generation wireless networks.…”

Design and Analysis of High-Capacity MIMO System in Line-of-Sight Communication

“…A novel alternating optimization framework is proposed in [ 9 ] to enhance the energy efficiency of intelligent reflective surface (IRS)-assisted non-orthogonal multiple access beamforming (NOMA-BF) systems for 6G wireless communication networks. The authors in [ 10 ] provided an overview of an IRS-enhanced physical layer security (PLS) for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication. The IRS-assisted PLS is presented in UAV communications to improve the secrecy rate.…”