DRONEGUARD: Distributed Role-based Organizational Network Encryption for UAV

Secure communication in UAV swarms is challenged by resource constraints and cyber-physical threats. We propose a certificate-based hybrid encryption protocol, where a Ground Control Station (GCS) acts as a certificate authority and designates group leaders. Leaders delegate trust within subgroups via group certificates. Pairwise session keys are established using Elliptic Curve Diffie–Hellman (ECDH), followed by symmetric encryption for data transfer. Mutual certificate authentication protects against MITM, replay, and impersonation attacks. Simulations (ns-3, Raspberry Pi 4-class hardware) show inter-drone handshakes complete in 50 ms with low CPU/energy overhead, and no attacks succeeded in 100 trials. Compared to existing schemes, our protocol provides strong security with minimal latency, supporting efficient, real-time drone swarm operations.