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A novel improved artificial bee colony and blockchain-based secure clustering

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Article  in  China Communications · July 2021

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A Novel Improved Artificial Bee Colony and
Blockchain-Based Secure Clustering Routing
Scheme for FANET
Liang Zhao, Muhammad Bin Saif, Ammar Hawbani, Geyong Min, Su Peng, Na Lin
Abstract—Flying Ad hoc Network (FANET) has drawn signif-
icant consideration due to its rapid advancements and extensive
use in civil applications. However, FANET characteristics of
high mobility, limited resources and distributed nature have
posed a new challenge to develop a secure and efficient routing
scheme for FANET. To overcome these challenges, this paper
proposed a novel cluster based secure routing scheme, which
aims to solve the routing and data security problem of FANET.
In this scheme, the optimal cluster head selection is based on
residual energy, online time, reputation, blockchain transactions,
mobility, and connectivity by using Improved Artificial Bee
Colony Optimization (IABC). The proposed IABC utilizes two
different search equations for employee bee and onlooker bee to
enhance convergence rate and exploitation abilities. Further, a
lightweight blockchain consensus algorithm, AI-Proof of Witness
Consensus Algorithm (AI-PoWCA) is proposed, which utilizes
the optimal cluster head for mining. In AI-PoWCA, the concept
of the witness for block verification is also involved to make
the proposed scheme resource efficient and highly resilient
against 51% attack. Simulation results demonstrate that the
proposed scheme outperforms its counterparts and achieves up
to 90% packet delivery ratio, lowest end-to-end delay, highest
throughput, resilience against security attacks, and superior in
block processing time.
Index Terms—Improved Artificial Bee Colony Optimization;
Optimal Cluster Head Selection; Secure Routing; Blockchain;
Lightweight Consensus Protocol
I. I NTRODUCTION
comparatively new research field of ad hoc networks for
A flying vehicles, Flying Ad hoc Network (FANET) has
emerged as a promising networking paradigm [1]. FANET
consists of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) as they can
fly autonomously and remotely without any human assistance
[2][3][4]. In recent years, FANET has attracted more attention
in civilian, and commercial applications, such as search and
rescues operation [5][6], border monitoring [7], traffic control
and management [8][9], and remote sensing [10], because of
the adoptable, versatile and flexible nature of FANET. This
made FANET an interesting field of research [11].
Liang Zhao, Muhammad Bin Saif, Su Peng, and Na Lin are with School
of Computer Science, Shenyang Aerospace University, Shenyang, Liaon-
ing, China. (e-mail: lzhao@sau.edu.cn;195252410804@email.sau.edu.cn; su-
peng@stumail.neu.edu.cn; linna@sau.edu.cn)
Ammar Hawbani is with School of Computer Science and Technology,
University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. (e-mail:
anmande@ustc.edu.cn)
Geyong Min is with University of Exeter, Exeter, UK. (e-mail:
g.min@ex.ac.uk)
Ammar Hawbani and Geyong Min are the corresponding authors of this
work.
1
FANET can be perceived as a subset of Mobile Ad hoc Net-
work (MANET) and Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANET).
However, despite having similar characteristics, FANET has
some unique features as compared to ad hoc on land. Such as
distributed nature, 3D mobility, high speed, frequent topology
changes, node density, and resource constraint nature [12]. The
speed of UAVs is greater than that of MANET and VANET.
Moreover, UAVs have total freedom of movement in three
dimensions (3D) which leads to frequent topology changes.
UAVs are fitted with small batteries, providing a flight time of
about 30-40 minutes [13]. These features have a direct impact
on the development of routing protocol for FANET [14].
The advanced applications are being designed for FANETs,
but pose new challenges, including data security, traffic load
balancing, mobility, congestion, and high error rates, which
typically lead to the degradation of network performance. The
wireless communication scheme is essential to build a flying
ad hoc network for collaboration and communication between
UAVs. Due to FANET’s highly dynamic nature, 3D mobility
and high speed results in low throughput, high delay and
consumes more battery power of UAV [15]. One solution
for this problem is the cluster-based routing. Clustering is
a strategy for grouping nodes in different clusters of the
same geographical area [16]. Each cluster has a cluster head
(CH) and other neighboring nodes called cluster members
(CM) are connected with CH to form a cluster [17]. The,
CH’s selection is among the most significant of all clustering
tasks, where every node in the network can be a candidate
for CH. The criterion of selecting a cluster head is probably
random, or well-defined criterion based on various factors i.e.
connectivity, residual energy, mobility and reputation. Hence,
a well-defined criterion depends on objectives for maximizing
the connectivity, maximizing residual energy, minimizing mo-
bility, maximizing reputation should be designed, where this
problem is a multiple objective optimization problem. To this
end, it is a challenging task to select an optimal cluster head
and objectives that are related to the problem.
In recent years, different CH selection approaches were
presented. For example, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)
[18], Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) [19], Grey Wolf Opti-
mization (GWO) [20], and Artificial Bee Colony Optimization
(ABC) [21] for clustering in ad hoc networks have also been
proposed. The Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm is a new
type of swarm intelligence algorithm proposed by Basturk and
Karaboga [21]; this algorithm has been modified by many
studies to solve complicated problems in various fields of
 2

science and engineering. Similar to other population-based gorithm using IABC. In the objective function, we
meta-heuristic algorithms, ABC meta-heuristics also faces considered different factors. The selected cluster head
some challenges, such as a poor exploitation process rather is optimal in terms of resources and security, which is
than exploration, and comparatively slow rate of convergence, also employed for mining.
especially in dealing with multi-modal optimization problems. 3) A novel lightweight consensus algorithm is proposed, in
Furthermore, FANET security has become a critical issue which we consider the optimal cluster head as a super
and drawn increasing concern because UAVs can be employed miner. The new block is verified by a randomly selected
as weapons. The key features of the most related works are super mining node, and the concept of a witness for the
compared in Table I. At present, numerous researches have new block is also proposed. This allows the algorithm
been conducted on the security of FANET. These studies to be more resilient against a 51% attack.
have focused on communication privacy, integrity, and au-
thentication through the development of trust management II. T HE P ROPOSED ROUTING S CHEME
[22] and cryptographic protocols [23]. However, ensuring the
Two significant challenges that FANET encounters are how
data immutability, data availability, and transparency of the
to connect nodes together and how to adapt the dynamically
network is still an open research problem in FANET. In
changes in the network topology. The overview of the novel
cluster based routing the data immutability, data availability,
and transparency is a crucial issue as members in the cluster
solely rely on the CH for operational instructions, route
discovery, and routing data storage. The peer-to-peer network
and distributed characteristics of FANET makes them suitable
for blockchain. The combination of FANET and blockchain
can provide the capabilities to make FANET routing data more
secure, immutable, and transparent. The blockchain [24] is a
decentralized and distributed data structure run by a consensus
algorithm and distributed nodes. The application that runs
previously through any trusted authority; in blockchain, it is
possible to run that application without any trusted authority in
a distributed environment [25][26]. Without central authority,
blockchain can assist to develop a distributed network of
nodes, in which blockchain excludes the need to trust each
node in the network. The consensus algorithm used by the
blockchain ensures that the ledger is consistent and temper
proof across all nodes in the network.
The above work gives us motivation to develop an improved
artificial bee colony and blockchain-based secure clustering
routing scheme for FANET. In this paper, we proposed an
Improved Artificial Bee Colony (IABC) algorithm for bal-
ancing the exploration and exploitation process. Moreover,
convergence rate is fast in the comparison with the origi-
nal Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm. Furthermore, an Fig. 1: Overview of secure FANET routing scheme.
optimal cluster head selection algorithm is proposed using
IABC. In the proposed scheme, the CH is responsible for inter- FANET routing scheme is depicted in Fig. 1. In this scheme,
cluster, intra-cluster routing, and base station communication. the UAVs are employed as relay nodes for ground stations. For
Furthermore, CMs rely on CH for route discovery, packet example, if two ground stations are not in the communication
forwarding, and routing table storage. Therefore, routing data range of each other the FANET helps to establish a link
security and immutability is critical for CH to overcome between ground stations. After optimal cluster head selection
this challenge we employed blockchain. However, for highly and network formation, as described below the CHs locates the
resource-constrained FANETs, traditional blockchain consen- nearest ground station by sending a Hello Message if ground
sus algorithms are not suitable. Therefore, we proposed a stations are in direct communication range or through edge
lightweight consensus algorithm AI-Proof of Witness Consen- UAVs. The second step is if a new block is generated, the
sus Algorithm which do not only comprises miners to verify CH invites a random witness UAV by sending its Public Key
blocks, but also requires a witness to verify block to append (PK) and the witness UAV verifies the new block by adding
in the blockchain. The major contributions of the paper are its digital signature. After successful block verification, the
listed as follows. CH (super mining node) broadcasts a new block using Block
1) We proposed an improved artificial bee colony algorithm Announcement Message. The third step is the ground station
(IABC). The proposed algorithm is significantly better sends a data packet to CH and CH forwards the packet to
in exploration, exploitation and convergence. the next hop by looking into its routing table until the packet
2) We introduced the optimal cluster head selection al- reaches the destination ground station.
 3

TABLE I: Comparison of Most Related Works

Ref. Detail Advantage Disadvantage

[27] Proposed a trust model based on blockchain Identify malicious fake reports Computational, time complexity and energy
for Unmanned Aerial System (BUAS) consumption because of PoW
[28] Proposed a secure utilization of drones in an Improves latency, network overheads, and Lack of user independency, and verification
ultra-dense network deployment costs of users in IoD
[29] Proposed a blockchain based UAV assisted MEC server stores the collected data into Vulnerable to injection attacks
data acquisition for IoTs blockchain
[30] Proposed the position-aware, secure, and Ensures the security and scalability High overhead and delay
efficient mesh routing approach (PASER)
[31] Proposed Fuzz-logic based trust model for Identifies selfish nodes Poor performance for network with low le-
FANETs (FCTM) gitimate nodes
[32] Proposed a blockchain technology for auto- Protect the privacy of users and increase the High latency, overhead and delay
motive security security of the vehicular ecosystem

Fig. 2 illustrates the system structure of proposed secure
FANET routing scheme. At first, we select a UAV with high
residual energy to perform cluster head selection by employing
the proposed IABC algorithm. After reaching a maximum
number of cycles, IABC returns a list of optimal cluster heads
or also called super mining nodes, and broadcasts in the
network with cluster head ID. The second step is network
formation, all UAVs except CHs send cluster join request
to neighbouring CH, and the CH keeps updating the routing
table. In the proposed scheme, we consider each update in the
routing table as a blockchain transaction and transmits it to the
blockchain module. The third step is to secure the routing data
when the number of transactions reaches a specified threshold
a block is created and it invokes the consensus algorithm to
verify and append block in the blockchain. The consensus
algorithm invites a witness node to be a witness of the block
by adding a digital signature of the witness. After, a successful
verification block is appended in the local chain and broadcast
in the network to other CHs.
Fig. 2: System structure of secure FANET routing scheme.
A. Improved Artificial Bee Colony Optimization
Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm is a meta-heuristic algo-
rithm comprised intelligent and foraging behavior of honey
bee swarms. The algorithm comprised three essential phases:
employee bee phase, onlooker bee phase, and scout bee phase.
Every employee bee is associated with a specific food source;
onlooker bees watch the wangle dance of employee bees in a
hive to check the quality of food and scout bees search for food
randomly [21]. Various modifications have been presented
to improve the efficiency of the original version of ABC.
Following other meta-heuristic algorithms, standard ABC also
suffers a few challenges, such as slow convergence speed
during search and an unbalanced exploitation and exploration
process. A new candidate solution is produced by updating its
parent solution’s random dimension vector during the search
process. Therefore, most likely, new candidate solution is
similar to its parent solution, which leads to slow convergence.
In addition, when addressing complex multimodal problems,
ABC may easily fall into local minima [33]. Therefore, a
better optimization algorithm during the search process should
balance exploration and exploitation.
In this context, we proposed two different search equations
for coping with slow convergence rate and unbalanced ex-
ploration and exploitation process. The standard ABC can
produce a new solution by utilizing Eq. (1). In Eq. (2), we
proposed a improved search equation for the employee bee
phase in which it utilizes the information of the global best
solution, which helps to improve the exploitation process in
the employee bee phase. The second part (𝑥 𝑔, 𝑗 − 𝑥𝑖, 𝑗 ) of Eq.
(2) use the information of the global best solution. In Eq.
(2), 𝑥 𝑔, 𝑗 is the 𝑗 𝑡 ℎ element of global best solution and first
part of equation is similar to standard ABC algorithm, which
works better in exploration. Hence, Eq. (2) is more balanced
in exploration and exploitation.
𝑣 𝑖, 𝑗 = 𝑥 𝑖, 𝑗 + 𝜙𝑖, 𝑗 (𝑥 𝑖, 𝑗 − 𝑥 𝑘, 𝑗 ) (1)
𝑣 𝑖, 𝑗 = 𝑥 𝑖, 𝑗 + 𝜙𝑖, 𝑗 (𝑥 𝑖, 𝑗 − 𝑥 𝑘, 𝑗 ) + (𝑥 𝑔, 𝑗 − 𝑥𝑖, 𝑗 ) (2)
The onlooker bee also utilizes Eq. (1) for producing new
candidate solution in standard ABC, which is more likely
to tend to slow convergence. The modified search approach
MABC (ABC/best/1) is proposed in [34], in which the infor-
mation of global best solution has been used to assist new
candidate solutions. We employ the search strategy of Eq. (3)

for onlooker bees, which is helpful to achieve fast convergence
compared with search equation Eq. (1) of standard ABC,
which only search in the neighborhood randomly.
𝑣 𝑖, 𝑗 = 𝑥 𝑔, 𝑗 + 𝜙𝑖, 𝑗 (𝑥 𝑔, 𝑗 − 𝑥 𝑘, 𝑗 ) (3)
where 𝑥 𝑔, 𝑗 is the 𝑗 𝑡 ℎ element of global best solution, 𝜙𝑖, 𝑗
is random number between [-1,1], and 𝑥 𝑘, 𝑗 is the randomly
selected solution in population (𝑘 ≠ 𝑖), 𝑗 ∈ (1, 2, ....𝐷) in a
random index.
B. IABC-Cluster Head Selection
We proposed a cluster-based routing scheme, in which an
optimal selection of cluster head (CH) is implemented based
on our proposed IABC. CH selection is considered as one of
the most pivotal tasks for clustering in FANETs because CH
routes the data from Cluster Members (CM) and transmitting
data to other CHs. We consider group of objectives to calculate
the proposed fitness function described as follows:
• Residual Energy: The total remaining energy of UAV is
residual energy described in Eq. (4)
𝐸𝑟 = 𝐸 𝑡 − 𝐸 𝑐 + 𝐸 𝑝𝑟 + 𝐸 𝑝𝑠 (4)
where 𝐸𝑟 is current residual energy 𝐸 𝑡 is the total initial
energy 𝐸 𝑐 is the energy for processing one block in
blockchain, 𝐸 𝑝𝑟 is the packet receiving energy, and 𝐸 𝑝𝑠
is the packet sending energy. In the proposed scheme,
the CH is responsible for inter-cluster and intra-cluster
communication. Hence, the residual energy of CH is very
crucial because low residual energy leads to frequent dead
nodes and decreases the overall network lifetime.
• Reputation Ranking: The reputation ranking is based on
the number of packets received, the number of packets
dropped, and the number of packets forwarded. Therefore,
a high reputation ranking helps to avoid malicious and
compromised UAV to be selected as a CH.
• Total Online Time: Online time is the total time that each
UAV takes part in the blockchain and network. The higher
online time of CH indicates that CH has less probability
to turn into a dead node which enhances trust and overall
network lifetime.
• Numbers of Transactions: The numbers of transactions
are the total number of new blocks append in the
blockchain by individual UAV. The malicious and com-
promised UAV can hold or drop blockchain transactions.
Hence, the number of transactions is useful to select a
trusted CH. Trusted CH can reduce energy consumption
and the number of transactions to be verified [35].
• Mobility: The mobility is course change and speed stabil-
ity of a UAV compared with other UAVs in the network.
The stable course change and low-speed help to form
more stable clusters, reduces frequent link breakage, and
control messages.
• Connectivity: The connectivity is the number of UAVs
connected with any individual UAV in the network. The
UAV with higher connectivity have a higher likelihood of
being CH because high connectivity reduces the number
of uncluster UAVs and increases the packet delivery ratio.
4
Initialization Phase: The initialization of population is an
important phase in any population based meta-heuristic opti-
mization algorithm. In our proposed algorithm, each UAV is
initialized with above mentioned parameters and considered
as a food source.
Fitness Function: The assessment of each food source in
population and selecting optimal CH needs to have a fitness
function. For the selection of optimal cluster head in our pro-
posed algorithm, we constructed a fitness function inspired by
[36]. The major objectives of fitness function are that if UAV
is selected as a CH, it should have maximum residual energy
𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝐸𝑟 ), maximum reputation ranking 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝑅𝑟 ), maximum
online time 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝑂 𝑡 ), maximum transactions 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝑇), mini-
mum UAV mobility 𝑚𝑖𝑛(1 𝑀 ) , and maximum UAV connectivity
𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝐶).
The proposed fitness function can be described as
𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝐸𝑟 ) + 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝑅𝑟 ) + 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝑂 𝑡 ) + 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝑇) + 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝐶)
𝑓 ∝
𝑚𝑖𝑛(𝑀)
(5)
𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝐸𝑟 ) + 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝑅𝑟 ) + 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝑂 𝑡 ) + 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝑇) + 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝐶)
𝑓 =𝐾
𝑚𝑖𝑛(𝑀)
(6)
where K is a constant of proportionality, we assumed K=1.
𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝐸𝑟 ) + 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝑅𝑟 ) + 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝑂 𝑡 ) + 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝑇) + 𝑚𝑎𝑥(𝐶)
𝑓 =
𝑚𝑖𝑛(𝑀)
(7)
Therefore, we determine the fitness of solution using Eq. (7).
Employee Bee Phase: Employed bees search for new food
sources, it associates each employee bee with a food source.
The number of employee bees are equal to the food source
and each employee bee determines a new solution using Eq.
(2). After producing new solution, it calculates the fitness
of proposed solution by using Eq. (7) and applies greedy
selection for selecting improved food source. At the end of
this phase employee bee share information with onlooker bee.
Onlooker Bee Phase: The onlooker bee selects a food source
according to probability given in Eq. (8) and determines a
new solution by using Eq. (3). The onlooker bee calculates
the nectar amount in other words fitness of newly generated
solution by using Eq. (7) and applies greedy selection for
selecting improved food source.
𝑓𝑖
𝑝 𝑖 = Í𝑆 𝑁 (8)
𝑓𝑖
𝑖=1
where 𝑓𝑖 is the fitness of 𝑖 𝑡 ℎ solution in the population and
𝑖 = 1, 2, 3, ..., 𝑆𝑁 SN is the population size. Hence, fitness is
proportional to 𝑝 𝑖 .
Scout Bee Phase: The scout bee randomly determines new
food source using Eq. (9), if a food source does not improve
the fitness after repeated trails and food source it is considered
as abandoned.
𝑥 𝑖, 𝑗 = 𝑥 𝑚𝑖𝑛
𝑗 + 𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑 (0, 1) (𝑥 𝑚𝑎𝑥
𝑗 − 𝑥 𝑚𝑖𝑛
𝑗 ) (9)
where 𝑥 𝑖, 𝑗 is new food source. 𝑥 𝑚𝑎𝑥
𝑗 and 𝑥 𝑚𝑖𝑛
𝑗 denote the upper
and lower bounds of abandoned food source, respectively.

𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑑 (0, 1) is a uniform random number range between 0 and
1. The scout bee will replace new solution with abandoned
food source. After reaching maximum number of cycles
𝑀𝐶𝑁, the proposed IABC will return optimal cluster head.
Network Formation: After the selection of optimal cluster
head, the next phase is formation of network. In our proposed
solution, cluster head is responsible for handling packets from
cluster members and forward packets to other cluster heads.
Each UAV in the network is initialized with a UAV ID, which
is used as a identification for UAV. Initially all UAVs except
cluster heads in the network broadcasts Join Cluster Message.
When a cluster head receives Join Cluster Message, it updates
its cluster member’s table. Each CH maintains three tables as
follows.
• Cluster Member Table: The CH manages a cluster mem-
ber table in which the information of direct neighbors
of CH is stored, and intra-cluster communication is per-
formed by utilizing the cluster member table. The entries
in a table contain the Id of a neighboring UAV, con-
nected or disconnected status, and updated information
of parameters, i.e. the residual energy, reputation ranking,
total online time, number of transactions, mobility, and
connectivity of neighbors and CH update all information
periodically.
• Two-hop Member Table: The cluster members broadcast
their neighbors information periodically to the CH. There-
fore, by utilizing the information of neighbors, the CH can
collect information about UAVs located two-hop away
and maintains a two-hop member table by adding two-
hop un-clustered neighbors.
• Edge Member Table: The edge member table maintains
the information of neighboring clusters. The edge UAV
is connected with more than one CHs, which is used
as a link between two clusters. The edge member table
contain Ids of connected CHs, Id of edge UAV, which
is connected with both cluster heads and link status. The
inter-cluster communication is performed by utilizing an
edge member table.
C. A Lightweight Consensus Algorithm
Blockchain is a distributed database, in which every node
or majority of nodes should participate and agree in the
decision of adding a new block of information in blockchain
and should have a copy of that database. Blockchain is a
distributed ledger with tamper-proof, decentralization and data
traceability characteristics. Blockchain can be used to improve
the trustworthiness and robustness of the routing information.
We employ the blockchain to record the routing tables data
described in Section II (B) Network Formation. The process of
participating and agreeing on a common or majority decision
is called consensus. In this paper, we proposed an AI-based
lightweight consensus algorithm suitable for UAVs. Currently,
the mostly consensus algorithms used are not suitable for
UAVs because these algorithms consume energy and pro-
cessing power for reaching on consensus conclusion adding
a new block in blockchain. The commonly used consensus
algorithms are Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS)
5
[37]. In PoW algorithm, all mining nodes take part in the
consensus process, and the node with more resources, i.e.,
computing power or hashing power can commit new blocks
in the blockchain. In PoS, the node with more stakes in
the network has more chances to commit the new block in
blockchain. The drawbacks of these algorithms are energy
consumption and time delay for processing new blocks, which
makes these algorithms unsuitable for UAVs because of having
low battery power and less computing power. Blockchain com-
prise main three components transactions or blocks, consensus
algorithm and chain.
1) Transactions and Blocks: The structure of the transac-
tion is shown in Fig. 3(a). The first entry is the transaction
ID (TID). In contrast, the second entry is a pointer to the
previous transaction of transaction generator UAV. The third
is the public key (PK) of the transaction generator UAV. The
fourth is a time-stamp when a transaction is generated. The
fifth is the signature of the transaction receiver CH, sixth entry
is the reputation of transaction. The reputation comprises three
entries, 1) total number of transactions of the generator, 2)
the receiver CH rejects a total number of transactions, and 3)
the hash of PK that the transaction generator will use for the
next transaction. The reputation field is used in the distributed
trust algorithm presented by [35]. The structure of the block is
shown in Fig. 3(b). The block consists of a block header and
a block body. The header section contains, the hash of the
previous block, witness signature and time-stamp and block
body contains all transactions.
Fig. 3: Structure of Block, Transaction and Reputation.
2) AI-Proof of Witness Consensus Algorithm: The AI-
PoWCA selects an optimal UAV called super mining nodes
to add a new block in blockchain rather than allowing each
node in the network to take part in the mining process (Proof
of Work), or select a designated validator based on stakes in
the network (Proof of Stake). Thus, there is no or limited
competition in adding a new block. Super mining nodes are
optimal miners in terms of lifetime, reputation, connectivity,
and the number of transactions. The AI-PoWCA makes the
requirement on computational power and memory capacity of
the mining devices basic. The verification of a new block
is not only verified by a super mining node, at least one
random witness node, which is not a super mining node, is
invited to be a witness of a new block using a digital signature
generated by public and private key pair. The optimal cluster

TABLE II: AI-PoWCA Comparison With Existing Algorithms
Algorithm 51% Attack Long Range Attack DDoS
PoW Resilient Vulnerable Resilient
PoS Resilient Resilient Resilient
PoA Resilient Resilient Resilient
AI-PoWCA Highly Resilient Resilient Resilient
heads selected by IABC act as super mining nodes, and cluster
member nodes act as witness nodes in our proposed system.
A 51% attack needs simultaneously attack both super mining
nodes and witness nodes to gain hostile takeover. When a new
block is committed, the super mining node broadcasts a new
block in network, and all super mining nodes keep updated
their blockchain ledger. Hence, the proposed algorithm greatly
improves the security of blockchain.
D. Security Analysis
In this part, we conduct a security analysis to analyze our
proposal. The comparison of AI-PoWCA with PoW, PoS,
and PoA on attacks, energy consumption, and availability for
FANET is presented in Table II.
1) 51% Attack: 51% attack refers to an attack in which
a group of miners controlling over 50% of network mining
hash rate or computing power to prevent new transactions
from gaining confirmation. The proposed AI-PoWCA is highly
resilient against 51% attack. The attacker needs to control all
super mining nodes and witness nodes because a new block
is verified by the witness node as well.
2) Long Range Attack: Long range attack is a scenario
where the attacker creates a new branch on the genesis block
and overtakes the main chain. The proposed algorithm is re-
silient against long range attack because AI-PoWCA maintains
only the main branch.
3) DDoS Attack: DDoS attack takes place when a malicious
node floods a network with extreme traffic. DDoS attack made
possible through the centralized feature of the network. The
proposed scheme is decentralized, and numerous UAVs are
connected with each other in a distributed fashion. The attacker
needs to control multiple UAVs at the same time.
4) Sybil Attack: In this attack, a node attempts to overpower
the network through the use of different IDs. The AI-PoWCA
is resilient because all UAVs in the network are required to
have a genesis block and authorized ID which prevents the
attacker from introducing unauthorized UAV to the network.
III. E XPERIMENTS
In this section, we present the configuration and results of
our proposed scheme. We conduct the experiments on PC
intel core i5, 1.9 GHz CPU, and 8 GB RAM. We first eval-
uate the proposed IABC, then compare the proposed routing
scheme. The experimental code has been made open source
(https://github.com/MuhammadBinSaif/FANET-Routing).
6
Sybil Attack Energy Consumption Availability for FANET
Resilient Very High No
Resilient High No
Vulnerable Low Yes
Resilient Very Low Yes
A. Performance Evaluation of IABC
We conduct the experiments on MATLAB R2020 to com-
pare the performance of our proposed IABC with three well-
known population-based meta-heuristic algorithms, particle
swarm optimization algorithm [18], grey wolf optimization
algorithm [20], and standard artificial bee colony algorithm
[21]. The effectiveness of the algorithms is evaluated by utiliz-
ing eight well-known benchmark functions specified in Table
III. The first three functions f1, f2 and f3 with 30 dimensions
and range between [-100,100] are unimodal functions. The
high dimension of unimodal functions can help to examine
the exploitation ability of proposed algorithms. The latter five
multimodal functions from f4 to f8 with local optima can
help to investigate the exploration capability of the algorithm.
All experiments were run with 30 population size, and 50
independent runs. The performance of solution accuracy and
convergence of these three algorithms on each benchmark
function is shown in Fig. 4.
In case of unimodal functions from f1 to f3, as illustrated
in Fig. 4a, 4b and 4c, curve continues downward shift and
proposed IABC showed better performance in solution ac-
curacy and convergence, especially in f1 and f2. In case of
multimodal function from f4 to f8, IABC gets global optima
rapidly as shown in Fig. 4d, 4e, 4f, 4g and 4h, which shows
that IABC have better exploration ability in the comparison
with other algorithm, especially the original ABC. These
experiments have verified that IABC is superior in terms of
solution accuracy, convergence and balance in exploration and
exploitation to its adversaries.
B. Simulation Environment and Network Analysis
All the simulation experiments are carried out on NS-
3. As listed in Table IV, We adopt the random waypoint
mobility model for 3D mobility of UAVs. We have evaluated
the proposed routing scheme in different scenarios in terms
of UAV node density within an area of 1500m×1500m and
a communication range of 300m. The SHA-256 is used as
the hash algorithm in the blockchain. The performance of
the routing scheme is compared with meta-heuristic based
routing schemes AntHocNet [38] and BeeAdHoc [39] in terms
of packet delivery ratio (PDR), end-to-end delay (EED), and
throughput.
1) Packet Deliver Ratio: The packet delivery ratio (PDR)
is a ratio of number of packets delivered in total to the
total number of packets sent from source node. The PDR
is calculated as 𝑃𝑟 /𝑃𝑠 , where 𝑃𝑟 is the total number of
packets received and 𝑃𝑠 is the total number of packets sent
 7

TABLE III: The Benchmark Functions

Fun Formula Dim Range

𝑥𝑖2
Í𝑛
Sphere 𝑓1= 𝑖=1 30 [-100,100]
Axis Parallel Hyper Ellipsoid 𝑓2=
Í𝑛 2 30 [-100,100]
𝑖=1 𝑖 𝑥𝑖
Í𝑛 Î𝑛
Schwefel 2.22 𝑓3= 𝑖=1 |𝑥𝑖 | + 𝑖=1 |𝑥𝑖 | 30 [-100,100]
 
1 Í𝑛 2 Î𝑛 𝑥
Griewank 𝑓4= 1 + 4000 𝑖=1 𝑥𝑖 − 𝑖=1 cos
√𝑖 30 [-600,600]
𝑖
− 𝑥𝑖2 ) 2 + (1 − 𝑥𝑖 ) 2 ]
Í𝑛−1
Rosenbrock 𝑓5= 𝑖=1 [100( 𝑥𝑖+1 30 [-15,15]
q Í
𝑓 6 = 20 + 𝑒 − 20𝑒𝑥 𝑝 (−0.2 𝑛1 𝑖=1 𝑥𝑖2 ) − 𝑒𝑥 𝑝 ( 𝑛1 𝑖=1
𝑛 Í𝑛
Ackley 𝑐𝑜𝑠 (2 𝜋 𝑥𝑖 )) 30 [-32,32]
Í𝑛 p
Schwefel 2.26 𝑓 7 = 418.9829 × 𝑛 − 𝑖=1 𝑥𝑖 𝑠𝑖𝑛( |𝑥𝑖 |) 30 [-500,500]
( 𝑥𝑖2 − 10𝑐𝑜𝑠 (2 𝜋 𝑥𝑖 ))
Í𝑛
Rastrigin 𝑓 8 = 10𝑛 + 𝑖=1 30 [-15,15]

(a) Sphere (b) Axis Parallel Hyper Ellipsoid (c) Schwefel-2.22 (d) Griewank

(e) Rosenbrock (f) Ackley (g) Schwefel-2.26 (h) Rastrigin

Fig. 4: Convergence curves of IABC, PSO, ABC, and GWO on benchmark functions.

TABLE IV: The Simulation Parameters UAVs, the packet delivery ratio of all schemes climbs up. The
proposed routing scheme outperforms others in PDR, as we
Parameters Values can justify this because of the optimal cluster head selection
and formation of more stable clusters.
Simulator NS-3
Simulation Area 1500m×1500m
Simulation Time 100sec
Mobility Model Random Waypoint 1.00

Number of UAVs 10-80

0.95

Standard IEEE 802.11b

0.90
Packet Delivery Ratio

Packet Size 512bytes

UAV Height 100m 0.85

UAV Speed 20-50m/s 0.80

UAV Transmission Range 300m

0.75
Hash Algorithm SHA-256
0.70

AntHocNet
0.65
BeeAdHoc

Proposed
by source node. As shown in Fig. 5, we compare the PDR 0.60

of our proposed FANET routing strategy with meta-heuristic 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Number of UAVs
based routing schemes,AntHocNet and BeeAdHoc. The graph
illustrated that the proposed routing scheme achieves the
highest PDR up to 90% for all network densities. From Fig Fig. 5: The packet delivery ratio.
5, we can observe that with the increase of the number of
 8

260

2.5
240

220
End to End Delay (ms)

2.0

Throughput (kbps)
200
1.5

180

1.0
160

140
0.5 AntHocNet AntHocNet

BeeAdHoc
120
BeeAdHoc

Proposed Proposed
0.0 100
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Number of UAVs Number of UAVs

Fig. 6: The average end-to-end delay. Fig. 7: The average throughput.

2) Average End-to-End Delay: The end-to-end delay (EED) tionally expensive task. The average processing time of AI-
of each packet is the sum of the delays encountered by the PoWCA is illustrated in Fig. 8, which concludes that as the
transitional node on the way to the destination. The average number of blocks increases the processing time is gradually
EED depends on the sum of the total time taken to the increased.
number of packets received successfully at the destination
node. The efficiency of the network can be measured by the
average EED, which is supposed to be as low as possible.
As shown in Fig. 6, we can observe that the average EED of 100
proposed FANET routing scheme is significantly lower than
compared with other routing schemes this is because the UAVs
80
are distributed in clusters and each cluster head maintains its
cluster which leads to lower overhead messages and EED. It
Time (ms)

can be observed from Fig. 6 that the more number of UAVs 60

interact in network, the higher the bandwidth will be used,

and thus more congestion will occur, meaning that the average 40
EED will increase substantially.
3) Throughput: The throughout is described as an amount 20
of data transferred from source to destination during a time
period. We can observe the real transmission efficiency of 10 20 30 40 50
the network from this metric. Fig. 7 depicts the throughput Number of Blocks

of proposed FANET routing strategy in different scenarios.

We have simulated the proposed routing scheme on differ-
ent network density and compare with meta-heuristic based
routing schemes AntHocNet and BeeAdHoc to find out the
influence of UAVs density on throughout. From Fig. 7, we
concluded that the network utilize more throughput as network
density grows, in which the our scheme achieves the highest
throughput (249 kbps) in the scenario with 80 UAVs and the
lowest (129 kbps) in the scenario with 10 UAVs.
4) Block Generation Time: The processing time is the total
time consumed by a super mining node to verify a new block.
Due to resource constrained nature of UAVs, we adopted a
distributed trust algorithm proposed in [35], in which number
of transactions to be verified in a block is decreases as UAVs
build-up a trust table based on number of transactions verified
and number of transactions rejected of source node by super
mining node. On the other hand, in the classic blockchain we
must verify all transactions inside a block which is computa-
Fig. 8: Block processing time.
IV. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, we proposed a novel cluster-based secure
routing scheme for FANETs, which intends to simultaneously
deal with the problem of optimal cluster head selection and
routing data security. Initially, IABC is presented to balance
exploration and exploitation capabilities as well as the con-
vergence rate of standard ABC, and we evaluate performance
on scalable unimodal and multimodal benchmark functions.
The comparison with PSO, GWO, and ABC shows that IABC
outperforms these existing meta-heuristic algorithms. Further,
IABC had been utilized to minimize the fitness function for
CH selection based on residual energy, reputation, online time,
connectivity, transactions, and mobility. In addition, we present

a lightweight consensus scheme for blockchain which utilizes
the optimal CH for mining, as known as the super mining
node. We also introduce the concept of witness for block ver-
ification to make this scheme highly resilient. Last, extensive
experiments are conducted to compare our proposed scheme
with meta-heuristic based AntHocNet and BeeAdHoc in terms
of end-to-end delay, packet delivery ratio, throughput, and
block processing time, where the results show the proposed
scheme is superior in all scenarios and AI-PoWCA takes a
fraction of time for block processing.
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