Zero-Trust UAV-enabled and DT-supported 6G Networks

The Sixth Generation (6G) network is a cooperative network that relies on the capabilities of edge and end-devices. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) will play a significant role in this cooperative environment, by enabling aerial connectivity, high-speed data transmission, and network densification for both ground and aerial users. Such a cooperative non-conventional network infrastructure, especially with a one that relies on UAV swarms, cannot adopt conventional centralized intrusion detection and prevention systems. This paper presents a new framework that integrates the Zero-Trust Architecture (ZTA) into 6G networks to secure UAV communication. Contrary to the conventional ZTA, the proposed framework adapts a trust mechanism suitable for decentralized networks that maintains the security, privacy and authenticity of both UAV devices and their metaverse counterparts. A Federated Learning (FL) approach is adopted on UAV devices to support accurate and on-time decision making. Learnt models and trust scores are added onto a blockchain to support the ZTA. Experimental results reveal that the proposed architecture can maintain high levels of intrusion prevention and authenticity for UAVs.