Intelligent Drone-assisted Anonymous Authentication and Key Agreement for 5G/B5G Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks

Drones (or unmanned aerial vehicles) can play many assistant roles in the complex communication network, and can be used as an air relay node to support ground communications. It is expected to solve the sustainable communication problem of 5G/ beyond 5G (B5G) vehicular ad-hoc networks by using drones in rural or mountainous areas where communication is limited. In this paper, considering the emergency situation of vehicular ad-hoc networks, we design an assistant communication scheme based on the intelligent drone to help vehicles securely communicate each other under adversary but actual conditions. Besides, the real identity of the vehicle must also be protected to prevent illegal elements from obtaining and using them for crimes. To effectively assist vehicle communication and ensure that vehicle privacy is not compromised, we propose an intelligent drone-assisted anonymous authentication and key agreement for 5G/B5G vehicular ad-hoc networks. Utilizing the widely-used Real-Or-Random (ROR) model and the formal security analysis, the proposed scheme is proven to be resistant to several attacks. Moreover, the proposed scheme has better performance in terms of computation overhead and communication overhead through performance evaluation.