Physically secure and privacy‐preserving blockchain enabled authentication scheme for internet of drones

The wide applications of the Internet of Drones (IoD), ranging from package delivery to surveillance, attract the attention of industrialists and academicians. Drones are given the task of obtaining sensitive field information within the flying zone in real‐time. Hence, it is important to tackle the privacy and security issues associated with drones that are employed in these kinds of situations. Also, when the drones move to the new unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operator coverage area, the drones are required to execute the authentication process again, which affects the performance of IoD. To overcome the above‐said shortcomings, a physically secure and privacy‐preserving blockchain enabled authentication method is proposed in this paper. The blockchain network permits drones to perform quick re‐authentication by transferring drone authentication codes to the following UAV operators. In the proposed work, the drone does not need to store the secret keys to perform anonymous authentication, and it provides physical security for the drones. When compared to competing techniques, the proposed scheme delivers the needed security features while incurring lower storage, computational, and communication costs.