Group Handover for Drone-Mounted Base Stations

The widespread use of new technologies such as the Internet of things (IoT) and machine type communication (MTC) forces an increase on the number of user equipments (UE) and MTC devices that are connecting to mobile networks. Inherently, as the number of UEs inside a base station's (BS) coverage area surges, the quality of service (QoS) tends to decline. The use of drone-mounted BS (UxNB) is a solution in places where UEs are densely populated, such as stadiums. UxNB emerges as a promising technology that can be used for capacity injection purposes in the future due to its fast deployment. However, this emerging technology introduces a new security issue. Mutual authentication, creating a secure communication channel between terrestrial BS and UxNB, and fast handover operations may cause security issues in the use of UxNB for capacity injection. This study proposes a scheme for authenticating UxNBs by the terrestrial BSs. The new protocol suggests performing UE handover from terrestrial to UxNB as a group. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no authentication solution between BSs according to LTE and 5G standards. The proposed method provides a solution for the authentication of UxNB by the terrestrial BS. Additionally, a credential sharing phase for each UE in handover is not required in the proposed method. The absence of a credential sharing step saves resources by reducing the number of communications between BSs. Moreover, many UE handover operations are completed in concise time within the proposed group handover method.