Survey on Current Developments in UAV Secure Communication Techniques and Protocols

The UAV communication network is a rapidly growing technology that uses unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to transmit data over long distances. UAVs are equipped with wireless communication systems to connect with ground networks. There is an increasing use of UAVs for a variety of purposes, including surveillance, delivery, disaster relief, and military operations, which require reliable and secure wireless communication links. UAV communication security must be ensured through encryption, authentication, authorization, and access control mechanisms to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of data transmitted over UAV networks. A comprehensive review is provided in this paper of the latest UAV routing protocols, covering centralized-based, distributed- based, cluster-oriented, deterministic, probabilistic, static, dynamic, and social-network-oriented protocols. Following the evaluation of routing protocols, performance metrics, and limitations are analyzed based on the protocol type, objective, and simulation tools. Additionally, we summarize different secure communication techniques.