Building Agile and Resilient UAV Networks Based on SDN and Blockchain

In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology has developed rapidly and has been widely used in military operations, medical rescue, environmental monitoring, and so on. UAV networks are an important foundation for large-scale UAV collaborative work. Traditional mobile self-or-ganizing network technology is too complicated to be quickly constructed and dynamically adjusted according to application requirements. In this article, we propose a new type of UAV network based on SDN architecture and blockchain technology, which is named SUV. By using blockchain technology, SUV implements a logically centralized but physically distributed control plane, which is responsible for the routing calculation and configuration management of the UAV network. SUV can quickly build UAV networks according to the application requirements and communication environment. It has features such as flexibility, survivability, security, and programmability, and is suitable for 5G-oriented UAV networking.