Lightweight Authentication
for UAV Swarms

R-HAAP: per-packet keys from HKDF and ChaCha20-Poly1305 AEAD, in place of the chaotic-map cryptography that lightweight UAV protocols have relied on.

IEEE CONECCT 2026 · Jul 2–5 — peer-reviewed — applied cryptography — embedded systems
document

abstract

Increasingly critical operations employing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) reveal a major link vulnerability in their communications. Traditional lightweight protocols are based on static keys or cryptographically weak chaotic maps that cannot provide adequate security. This paper proposes R-HAAP, a Robust HKDF-AEAD Authentication Protocol, which provides a secure channel based on established cryptographic standards. R-HAAP replaces problematic chaotic-based keystreams with a structured approach: first, a shared secret is established via Elliptic-Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH); second, this secret is used with an HMAC-based Key Derivation Function (HKDF) to generate unique, per-packet symmetric keys; and third, all communication is secured using the ChaCha20-Poly1305 Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data (AEAD) cipher. This method cryptographically links packet metadata, such as UAV ID and packet offsets, to the message, thereby preventing replay and forgery attacks. Validation of R-HAAP using UavNetSim-v1, a high-fidelity discrete-event simulation framework, demonstrates minimal latency and high packet delivery rates in swarm conditions. A comprehensive, multi-layer security analysis confirms the protocol’s resilience against network-level attacks, implementation-specific side-channels, and its role in mitigating sensor-level (e.g., GPS spoofing) and supply-chain threats. R-HAAP offers a secure, flexible, and high-performance foundation for next-generation UAVs and FANETs.

key results

99.8%+ Packet delivery rate, held from 10 to 100 UAVs
150–250 µs Per-packet crypto cost on an ARM Cortex-M4 at 168 MHz
<15 ms Average end-to-end delay with a 100-UAV swarm
32 B Fixed per-packet overhead: 16 B AAD plus 16 B Poly1305 tag

authors

  • Aryan Mondal Dept. of Networking and Communications · SRM Institute of Science and Technology · Kattankulathur, India
  • Abhradeep Basak Dept. of Networking and Communications · SRM Institute of Science and Technology · Kattankulathur, India
  • Thanga Revathi S Dept. of Networking and Communications · SRM Institute of Science and Technology · Kattankulathur, India

keywords · index terms

uav swarms fanets lightweight authentication hkdf chacha20-poly1305 ecdh aead secure key derivation

venue · publication

conference IEEE CONECCT 2026
dates 2–5 July 2026
conference record IEEE # 68978
isbn 979-8-3315-8867-0
doi 10.1109/CONECCT68978.2026.11700751
document id IEEE Xplore · 11700751
pages 1 – 8
location Bengaluru, India
full title A Robust and Lightweight Authentication Protocol for UAV Swarm Communications using HKDF-based Key Derivation and AEAD

cite this

BibTeX for the IEEE Xplore version of record. 

@inproceedings{mondal2026robust,
  author    = {Mondal, Aryan and Basak, Abhradeep and {Thanga Revathi S}},
  title     = {A Robust and Lightweight Authentication Protocol for {UAV} Swarm Communications using {HKDF}-based Key Derivation and {AEAD}},
  booktitle = {2026 IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Computing and Communication Technologies (CONECCT)},
  year      = {2026},
  month     = jul,
  pages     = {1--8},
  publisher = {IEEE},
  isbn      = {979-8-3315-8867-0},
  doi       = {10.1109/CONECCT68978.2026.11700751}
}

read in full

Full text, the three protocol listings (session establishment, per-packet key derivation, secure transmission), the UavNetSim-v1 simulation setup, figures, tables, and the complete reference list are hosted on IEEE Xplore. This page is a landing summary — the canonical version of the paper lives there.

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