Abstract
Communication to and from next generation Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) will likely operate in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication band. The abundance of bandwidth in this band permits low-latency and high-speed communication to and from UAVs. Securing UAV communications in this band can be challenging as traditional encryption methods are unpractical due to cost, complexity, and crypto-key management. To overcome these challenges, this project proposes a simple and yet effective solution that enhances the UAV communication secrecy. Specifically, large antenna arrays in modern UAVs will be utilized to develop a physical layer technique that potentially eliminate spoofing attacks without the complexity of ciphertext transmission. Numerical results show that the proposed technique improves the secrecy of UAV communication links, and, as a result, improve the overall safety of the flight and lowers operation costs.