UAS security: Encryption key negotiation for partitioned data

Unmanned aerial systems, often referred as drones, are becoming largely popular among general public and businesses. The system includes the actual unmanned aerial system (UAS), the ground station and the communication link between them. The data transmitted between the ground station and the UAS in both directions, as well as the data stored on the UAS memory chips in the case of a crash or an illegitimate access to it, should not be easily available to a third party. This paper proposes an encryption key negotiation method for partitioned data stored and exchanged in UAS applications. The proposed approach, aimed at providing authentication and security through key negotiation, includes a modified cryptographic protocol that uses a combination of off-the-record and pretty good privacy to encrypt the data stored on UAS and the data transmitted through the communication link between the ground station and the UAS. The encryption solutions were tested using a Java environment and are proposed to be implemented on FPGA development boards to be installed on prototype UAS. Depending on the encryption method used AES/RSA and the computational requirements, the cost of an actual implementation may increase due to the need of faster FPGA chips.