Physical Layer Security Analysis of UAV Based Communication Networks

In this paper, we investigate the communication security in aerial wiretap channels, where a network flying platform (NFP) wishes to send information to a legitimate destination, in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers. The stochastic geometry is used to describe the eavesdroppers' locations, with a given density, and in a specific environment. Based on that, we derive the secrecy outage probability expression for a standard aerial communication network with a single eavesdropper. Then, we evaluate the physical layer security of a standard and a beamforming based aerial communication systems in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers. Monte Carlo simulations are conducted to confirm and discuss the analytical results. These results show that the physical layer security in aerial wiretap channels is essentially affected by the altitude of the NFP, the eavesdroppers' density, and the type of environment.