An agent-based self-protective method to secure communication between UAVs in unmanned aerial vehicle networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces an agent-based self-protective method for UAV networks that leverages the Human Immune System model to detect attacks and select the safest communication routes, improving security and reliability.

Contribution

It proposes a novel self-adaptive, agent-based security approach for UAV networks based on Artificial Immune System principles, addressing limitations of prior classical and metaheuristic methods.

Findings

Packet Delivery Rate increased by over 25.91%

Detection rate improved by more than 29.3%

Packet Loss Rate decreased by over 20.21%

Abstract

UAVNs (unmanned aerial vehicle networks) may become vulnerable to threats and attacks due to their characteristic features such as highly dynamic network topology, open-air wireless environments, and high mobility. Since previous work has focused on classical and metaheuristic-based approaches, none of these approaches have a self-adaptive approach. In this paper, the challenges and weaknesses of previous methods are examined in the form of a table. Furthermore, we propose an agent-based self-protective method (ASP-UAVN) for UAVNs that is based on the Human Immune System (HIS). In ASP-UAS, the safest route from the source UAV to the destination UAV is chosen according to a self-protective system. In this method, a multi-agent system using an Artificial Immune System (AIS) is employed to detect the attacking UAV and choose the safest route. In the proposed ASP-UAVN, the route request packet (RREQ) is initially transmitted from the source UAV to the destination UAV to detect the existing routes. Then, once the route reply packet (RREP) is received, a self-protective method using agents and the knowledge base is employed to choose the safest route and detect the attacking UAVs. The proposed ASP-UAVN has been validated and evaluated in two ways: simulation and theoretical analysis. The results of simulation evaluation and theory analysis showed that the ASP-UAS increases the Packet Delivery Rate (PDR) by more than 17.4, 20.8, and 25.91%, and detection rate by more than 17.2, 23.1, and 29.3%, and decreases the Packet Loss Rate (PLR) by more than 14.4, 16.8, and 20.21%, the false-positive and false-negative rate by more than 16.5, 25.3, and 31.21% those of SUAS-HIS, SFA and BRUIDS methods, respectively.