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IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing

A Robust Physical Layer Security Scheme Based on Collaborative Beamforming for UAV Networks with Jitter

Jiaxing Wang, Hengyan Xu, Xin Xie, Rui Han, Lin Bai, Guowei Shi

Published Jan 1, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) are expected to play a crucial role in future sixth-generation systems and low-altitude communication networks owing to their mobility, flexibility, and wide-range coverage capability. However, the predominance of line-of-sight channels makes UAV communications highly susceptible to eavesdropping, posing significant challenges for secure transmission. Distributed collaborative beamforming has emerged as a promising physical layer security technique for the UAV networks, but its performance is fundamentally constrained by the intrinsic jitter of UAV platforms, which is unavoidable in practical systems. In this paper, a physical layer security scheme is proposed for UAV networks based on collaborative beamforming technologies, within which distinct algorithms are designed according to whether the location of the eavesdropper (EAV) is known or unknown. When the location of the EAV is unknown, the theoretical secrecy performance of the proposed method is derived, and a beamforming strategy is constructed based on the properties of the generalized Rayleigh quotient for the situation of known location. Then, the average secrecy rate of the proposed collaborative beamforming scheme is derived under jitter conditions, and a robust beamforming method is further developed for the scenario in which the location of the EAV is known. Simulation results demonstrate that the average secrecy rate is dramatically improved by the proposed collaborative beamforming scheme compared to the conventional approaches, and a substantial secrecy performance gain is maintained in the presence of UAV jitter.

DOI
10.1109/jstsp.2026.3696183

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Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) are expected to play a crucial role in future sixth-generation systems and low-altitude communication networks owing to their mobility, flexibility, and wide-range coverage capability. However, the predominance of line-of-sight channels makes UAV communications highly susceptible to eavesdropping, posing significant challenges for secure transmission. Distributed collaborative beamforming has emerged as a promising physical layer security technique for the UAV networks, but its performance is fundamentally constrained by the intrinsic jitter of UAV platforms, which is unavoidable in practical systems. In this paper, a physical layer security scheme is proposed for UAV networks based on collaborative beamforming technologies, within which distinct algorithms are designed according to whether the location of the eavesdropper (EAV) is known or unknown. When the location of the EAV is unknown, the theoretical secrecy performance of the proposed method is derived, and a beamforming strategy is constructed based on the properties of the generalized Rayleigh quotient for the situation of known location. Then, the average secrecy rate of the proposed collaborative beamforming scheme is derived under jitter conditions, and a robust beamforming method is further developed for the scenario in which the location of the EAV is known. Simulation results demonstrate that the average secrecy rate is dramatically improved by the proposed collaborative beamforming scheme compared to the conventional approaches, and a substantial secrecy performance gain is maintained in the presence of UAV jitter.
In this article, we consider the secure uplink transmissions from ground nodes to an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) receiver through analog collaborative beamforming (ACB). When the location information of the UAV receiver is available, ACB can be realized in a fully distributed manner, since each transmitting node can locally adjust its phase. ACB-based physical layer security (PLS) algorithm, where the virtual antenna array (VAA) elements are randomly selected at each transmit time unit, can effectively protect against eavesdropping attacks by creating artificial noise to the directions except the legitimate receiver (Bob). However, when Bob is mounted on the UAV, it can suffer from array gain loss due to jittering effects caused by airflow turbulence and mechanical vibration. Motivated by this issue, in this article, we investigate the impact of the UAV jitter on the secrecy performance. We derive the theoretical expressions of the secrecy rate both in the absence and presence of the jittering effects. Further, the simulation results show that the ACB-based PLS cannot guarantee non-zero secrecy rate even with the radial distance perturbations on the order of a few centimeters, especially when an eavesdropper (Eve) exists in close proximity to Bob.
This paper exploits the mobility of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to improve the physical layer (PLS) security against potential eavesdropping scenarios, where the sensitive data transmitted from a ground base station (GBS) to multiple information receivers (IRs) is easily eavesdropped by multiple non-colluding eavesdroppers (Eves). Specifically, the UAV is employed as a friendly jammer to transmit artificial noise to degrade the wiretap channels. By leveraging the UAV's mobility and the possibility of establishing line-of-sight links, the UAV can move close to the Eves and opportunistically jam them. Especially, two practical factors, namely, the imperfect location information of Eves and the existence of no-fly zones are considered. Since only the partial position information of the Eves can be known, as the worst case, the minimum average secrecy rate of IRs is robustly optimized by jointly designing the trajectory and jamming power of the UAV, and the transmission power of the GBS to ensure the security of all IRs. However, the formulated problem with coupled variables is non-convex and intractable. As such, an efficient alternative iterative suboptimal algorithm is proposed to solve this problem by applying the block coordinate descent, successive convex approximation, slack variables, andS\mathcal {S}S-Procedure. Numerical results reveal that the proposed robust algorithm can substantially improve the max-min average secrecy rate, and the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is further verified by comparing it with three benchmark schemes.
Owing to flexible management and low overhead, wireless physical layer security (PLS) has been applied to support many critical applications (e.g., data dissemination) of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)-based mobile communication networks in emergency scenarios. Although the impact of static network scenarios or receiver mobility on PLS has been well studied, there is no much work that studies the impact of UAV-based transmitter mobility on PLS. To fill this gap, in this paper, we investigate PLS of a scenario, where a random mobile UAV-based transmitter transmits information to a static ground entity under Rayleigh fading channel. More specifically, we consider a communication system, in which a mobile UAV hovers over a region to collect information and then disseminates this information to a static ground network entity in a confidential manner under the presence of an eavesdropper. Because of popularity and practicality, the UAV is assumed to hover following the random way point (RWP) mobility model. We investigate the secrecy characteristics of the UAV under steady running state in terms of ergodic secrecy capacity (ESC), positive secrecy capacity probability (PSCP) and secrecy outage probability (SOP) for the communication between the UAV and the receiver. We then investigate the secrecy performance of the proposed system while considering the pause time of the RWP mobility model adopted by the UAV. We further extend our proposed theoretical model to other realistic scenarios, including the presence of multiple cooperative and non-cooperative eavesdroppers, and study the PSCP and SOP metrics of the corresponding system. Furthermore, we propose three types of secrecy improvement strategies for the considered communication model. We strike a good trade-off between the secrecy improvement and transmit outage probability. Extensive simulations have been conducted to validate our theoretical analysis as well as the effectiveness of the proposed secrecy improvement strategies.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been extensively utilized in various scenarios due to their flexible mobility and rapid on-demand deployment. It becomes necessary and urgent to examine the secrecy performance of the UAV communication systems due to the open characteristics of the transmission technologies employed in UAV systems. In this paper, we investigate the physical layer security of the UAV communication system, in which the ground base station sends secret messages to the UAV hovering in the air, while a random number of eavesdroppers are randomly located around the ground base station. Using the Poisson point process theory, we obtain the exact and approximate expressions of the cumulative distribution function for the signal-to-noise ratio of the ground-to-air link, and then the analytical expressions of the secrecy outage probability and the average secrecy rate are derived. Finally, the accuracy of the analytical results is validated by Monte Carlo simulation.
To enhance the security of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication system with delayed channel state information (CSI), two physical layer security schemes based on 3D beamforming are propsed, namely destination-specific (DS) scheme and eavesdropper-null (EN) scheme. Through 3D beamforming, the UAV carries out beamforming design in horizontal and vertical directions, which improves the safety degree of freedom. The expressions of secrecy outage probability about two schemes are derived, and the influence of system parameters on the secrecy outage probability is studied. Simulation results verify that the 3D beamforming schemes can greatly reduce the secrecy outage probability and improve the security of UAV communication system.
Due to the advantages such as excellent mobility, low-cost, on-demand deployment, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are expected to play a significant role in the future wireless communication systems. One of the necessary and urgent problems is the physical layer security of this wireless communication system. Specifically, under the open nature of the UAV wireless channels, how to convey confidential information reliably in a coexistence environment with eavesdroppers. In this paper, we investigate a Q-learning based security scheme to maximize the average secrecy rate (ASR) against intentional or unintentional eavesdropping. Simulation results show comparable disguising performances compared with the benchmark method.