Blockchain-Empowered Trusted Networking for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the B5G Era

An unmanned aerial vehicle ad hoc network (UAANET) is an information sensing, analyzing, and transmitting network formed by multiple coordinated and collaborating UAVs. It is an emerging networking technology with a broad market prospect, but faces the problems of high dynamic topology and lack of trust. To address these issues, this article proposes a blockchain-em-powered trusted networking framework for UAANET, as well as the corresponding network architecture, protocol stack, key control signaling, and algorithms. To be more specific, blockchain is designed as a layer of distributed peer-to-peer security running on top of the physical UAANET. Three types of control signaling are designed, namely HELLO packet, topology control packet, and consensus packet. A max-min stable routing algorithm with three-dimensional link duration and a multipoint-relay-driven delegated Byzantine fault tolerance consensus mechanism are proposed for trusted networking of UAANET. The involved technical background and challenges are also detailed. These works together provide good references for scale deployment of UAANET in the near future.