Enhancing UAV Swarm Security through an RSSI-based Protocol for GNSS-Compromised Environments

The UAV market has experienced significant growth, with an expanding range of applications. However, the reliance of UAV missions on GNSS makes them vulnerable to attacks, particularly GNSS spoofing and jamming, which can cause mission failure or even physical damage. To mitigate this risk, we propose a lightweight fleet protocol designed to ensure that drones can complete their missions securely, even when under attack. Our system utilizes intra-fleet communication and Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) measurements for positioning, enabling the fleet to maintain formation and reach its destination even under GNSS attacks, or in a GNSS compromised scenario, thus avoiding its vulnerabilities. The proposed protocol was evaluated through extensive simulations using NS-3. The results reveal that the proposed protocol achieves a high mission success rate, reaching 100% in most single-attack scenarios, and demonstrates robust attack identification even when multiple drones are attacked or compromised. The average attack detection delay was measured at 300 milliseconds for single-attacker scenarios, while the RSSI table was updated every 50 to 55 milliseconds, ensuring data freshness. These findings highlight the potential of our solution to improve the resilience of UAV swarms in GNSS-compromised environments