Efficient and Secure Data Aggregation for UAV-to-Ground Station Communication in Smart City Environment

Currently, the increasing number of vehicles in smart cities has inspired the need for intelligent traffic system (ITS). However, the fusion of automobile and communication technologies is needed to develop an ITS. In ITS, some Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAVs) (called drones) are deployed to observe the traffic conditions. After getting real-time observation data, UAVs then communicate these observations to the traffic control office (TCO). Based on the observations, TCO can update the traffic system’s functioning in a real-time manner. However, due to open mediums (wireless channels), the communication between UAV-to-TCO is a soft target for unauthorized entities/users. Therefore, to secure communication between UAV-to-TCO in an efficient manner, this paper presents an efficient and secure data aggregation method. The efficiency and security analysis has also been presented to ensure the practicality of the protocol.