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.