Lightweight Group Pre-Handover Authentication Scheme for Aviation 5G Air-To-Ground Networks

With the emergence of fifth-generation (5G) technology, the air-to-ground (ATG) communication system based on 5G public mobile communication technology makes it possible to provide data services for in-flight communication. Customer premises equipment (CPE) is connected to ATG base stations to provide network access for user devices in-cabin. However, the handover authentication performed by CPEs during a handover between ATG base stations poses security risks and incurs a lot of overhead. Furthermore, frequent handovers between base stations and the limited computational resources of the CPE make the protection of security properties even more challenging. In this paper, we propose a lightweight group pre-handover authentication scheme for aviation 5G ATG networks. By leveraging the predictability of flight paths, all CPEs on the same aircraft can complete handover authentication before arriving at the next base station, and handover authentication delay can be ignored, providing seamless communication services for user devices in the cabin. The scheme utilizes the extended Chebyshev chaotic map and symmetric encryption technology to reduce computational overhead and adapt to the limited computing resources of CPE. Security and performance analysis show that our scheme achieves lightweight and efficiency while ensuring security performance and outperforms other relevant schemes.