Secure Drone Network Edge Service Architecture Guaranteed by DAG-Based Blockchain for Flying Automation under 5G

Abstract

With the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), the number of drones, as a consumer-level IoT device, is rapidly increasing. The existence of a large number of drones increases the risk of misoperation during manual control. Therefore, it has become an inevitable trend to realize drone flying automation. Drone flying automation mainly relies on massive drone applications and services as well as third-party service providers, which not only complicate the drone network service environment but also raise some security and privacy issues. To address these challenges, this article proposes an innovative architecture called Secure Drone Network Edge Service (SDNES), which integrates edge computing and blockchain into the drone network to provide real-time and reliable network services for drones. To design a feasible and rational SDNES architecture, we first consider the real-time performance and apply edge computing technology in it to provide low-latency edge services for drones under 5G mobile network. We use DAG-based blockchain to guarantee the security and reliability of the drone network service environment and effectively avoid malicious behaviors. In order to illustrate the feasibility of this architecture, we design and implement a specific service case named Drone Collision Avoidance Navigation Service based on SDNES. Finally, a simulation experiment for the specific service case and a series of other performance-related experiments were carried out to verify the feasibility and rationality of our proposed architecture. The experimental results demonstrate that SDNES is a promising architecture to assist and accelerate drone flying automation.

Risks of Drone Use in Light of Literature Studies

“…Researchers pay attention to automatic landing [ 67 , 214 , 215 ] on horizontal surfaces, with the possibility of climbing [ 216 ]. Researchers also share developed solutions in the design, construction, and testing of a drone in the form of open source [ 94 ], describe the process of designing a drone [ 217 ], or develop a drone network [ 218 , 219 ]. In articles, there are also proposals for human–drone interaction using gestures [ 162 ], drone communication systems [ 220 ], or MNIST character recognition and visual odometry [ 221 ].…”

SEDIBLOFRA: A Blockchain-Based, Secure Framework for Remote Data Transfer in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

“…Other approach is the one taken by Ying Gao et al in [27]. In this case, the authors of this piece of research have conceived what they refer to as Secure Drone Network Edge Service (SDNES).…”