An authentication framework for Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast based on online/offline identity-based signature

Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) is an emerging aircraft surveillance technology with which the concept of Internet of Things (IoT) is being realized in air traffic networks. The future "e-enabled" aircrafts will be equipped with ADS-B devices in order to share precise surveillance and location data among the aircrafts, ground controllers and, possibly, other third parties. ADS-B is expected to reduce air traffic congestion and mitigate Air Traffic Control (ATC) inefficiencies significantly in shared airspace. In order to provide high accuracy and assurance for the ADS-B communications, a secure and reliable authentication mechanism is required. However, this task is challenging in that 1) using regular digital signatures, which was proposed in the literature as an authentication solution, requires management of complex Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and 2) generating signatures for messages exchanged frequently in Aircraft-to-Ground (A2G) and Aircraft-to-Aircraft (A2A) communication modes can create a computational bottleneck easily. In this paper, we take a fresh approach to this problem by introducing a new type of online/offline identity-based signature scheme. Our scheme will resolve the PKI management issues and achieve high level of efficiency that makes possible for e-enabled aircrafts to perform frequent signing generations.