Physical layer challenge-response authentication for drone communications

Challenge-response is a well-known authentication protocol often implemented using encryption in upper layers. This thesis explores a new application of this mechanism at the physical layer, specifically in the context of drone communications. The objective is to leverage the characteristics of the radio channel model to establish a partially controllable channel. Instead of the verifier sending challenges to the drone, the verifier manipulates the physical properties of the channel and the drone's modified signal serves as the response during the verification process. In particular, this study focuses on power fluctuations due to shadowing, given an area where the drone is free to move. It will be demonstrated that these fluctuations can be exploited to achieve the desired partially controllable channel. Finally, the effectiveness of this approach will be evaluated in terms of misdetection probability.