Identity-Based Broadcast Signcryption Scheme for Vehicular Platoon Communication

Vehicular platooning is emerging as a promising method that can enhance road utilization, alleviate traffic congestion, and even decrease energy expenditure by shortening the distance between vehicles in the platoon. In platooning, a platoon leader (PL) is required to communicate with platoon members (PMs) to issue instructions. In this way, the PMs are simply expected to follow the command and enjoy their free time. However, when the same instruction is sent to different PMs in the form of single-hop unicast, the ciphertext will go up as the quantity of PMs in the platoon resulting in a dramatic increase in transmission time. Moreover, transmission instructions without security and authentication guarantees are easily intercepted, forged, or deleted. Therefore, in this article, we propose broadcast signcryption scheme for platoon communication (BSPC), a broadcast signcryption scheme for platoon communication based on identity. In our BSPC, with only one signcryption, the PL can generate a public verifiable ciphertext with fixed-length for PMs, while employing broadcast functionality to deliver the ciphertext to multiple PMs at once. In such a manner, the confidentiality, integrity, and authentication of transmitted commands are ensured, such that malicious vehicles cannot manipulate data and unauthorized vehicles have no way to access it. Besides, the instructions' transmit time is greatly reduced. Our BSPC proposal is proved to be secure and unforgeable through rigorous analysis. Furthermore, simulation results demonstrate our BSPC is practical and efficient for platoon communication.