Blockchain-based Secure Routing Strategy for Airborne Mesh Networks

Abstract

Mesh networks are widely used to provide flexible communication support for spatially distributed devices in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), such as UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) swarms. In the mesh network for UAS, a critical factor causing security concern is its routing strategy, especially for enabling source routing without disclosing the mesh network's sensitive topology among participants. Besides, conventional UAS networks are vulnerable to malicious participants which broadcast erroneous routing information. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based approach to enable UAS in mesh networks to collect, aggregate and redistribute routing information with a secure and trustworthy manner. Our method can avoid the disclosure of sensitive network topology in the presence of compromised peers. Evaluations show that our approach outperforms the conventional method in terms of information security.