A Blockchain-Enabled Secure and Decentralized ADS-B System for Intelligent Vehicles With Robust Authentication

As the next-generation air traffic surveillance technology, the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system plays a critical role in broadcast communication for intelligent vehicles such as autonomous aerial vehicles and aircraft. However, the unauthenticated channels expose the ADS-B system to a high risk of attacks. Besides, the centralization of intelligent vehicles management center is susceptible to single point failures and performance bottlenecks. In this paper, we propose a robust and distributed intelligent vehicles management architecture leveraging blockchain technology to resolve security and performance issues lying in the registration, update, and revocation of intelligent vehicles' identity public keys. Then, we leverage certificate-less short signature (CLSS) to achieve the dynamic identity verification of ADS-B system participants while ensuring message integrity, non-repudiation, and compatibility with low-data-bit message packets. Furthermore, to enhance intelligent vehicles transaction process efficiency within the proposed architecture, we develop an Verifiable Random Function-based Byzantine Fault Tolerance protocol (VRBFT) combining threshold signatures. Finally, through a comprehensive security analysis and feasibility assessment, the results indicate that authentication requires less than 30 ms, block generation occurs within 200 ms, and the system exhibits high throughput and low latency. These findings demonstrate that our solution significantly enhances the security of the ADS-B system and offers a practical and promising approach for real-time, large-scale intelligent vehicle management.